H3000 - unimpressed so far - what am I missing?

XV-1

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May 24, 2010
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Myles
with all due respect - you don't go spending 12k on a phono and have to go tube rolling to get it sounding half decent.....I mean really....


Have to agree Andrew. Any phono stage that does not sound excellent with its stock tubes, there is something wrong. To say you must tube roll on a 12k phono stage for me just says poor design.

Fremer's review seems pretty spot on:D
 

audioarcher

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Nope - plenty of gain, it just wasn't very good.

Anyways it's gone, and I'm alot less stressed in consequence.

Cheers

Well, I don't think you got the most out of the Allnic gear because of less than ideal matching. This sort of thing happens all the time, and people like to blame the gear itself. I've done it myself. I think we all have at some point. You just have to choose what stays and what goes. You made your choice.
 

rockitman

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Have to agree Andrew. Any phono stage that does not sound excellent with its stock tubes, there is something wrong. To say you must tube roll on a 12k phono stage for me just says poor design.

Fremer's review seems pretty spot on:D

I wonder how much breaking in drunkrabbit did ? It needs at least 100 hrs run in. Poor design ? I don't think so.
 

MylesBAstor

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I wonder how much breaking in drunkrabbit did ? It needs at least 100 hrs run in. Poor design ? I don't think so.

Actually I thought David said the SUTs needed like 500 hrs IIRC.
 

garylkoh

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The rectifier used was the RCA 5U4G. One factor that made a difference in our shootout was that the integrated amp used, did not have a real line stage built in. Which means that the overall gain was less than a setup using a separate line stage and amp. A couple of the phono stages needed the volume knob to be turned almost all the way up to get a decent volume. The Doshi had the most gain and had an advantage because of it. The results would have been a little different if we had used a line stage/amp combo instead.

I agree that the Genesis I60 does not have enough gain if the phono stage does not have too much gain. However, what is a "real" line stage? The I60 uses a pair of 12AX7's as an input buffer to the stepped resistor attenuator - otherwise it would sound different at different volumes with the changing impedance (which is why I don't like most passive pre-amps). Then, 6SN7 driver and KT88 power tubes. I think overall total gain is something like 26dB.
 

audioarcher

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I agree that the Genesis I60 does not have enough gain if the phono stage does not have too much gain. However, what is a "real" line stage? The I60 uses a pair of 12AX7's as an input buffer to the stepped resistor attenuator - otherwise it would sound different at different volumes with the changing impedance (which is why I don't like most passive pre-amps). Then, 6SN7 driver and KT88 power tubes. I think overall total gain is something like 26dB.

Sorry Gary. I did not mean to imply it was a poor design. I just noticed that most integrated amps have much less gain, than most linestage/amp combo's. Vinyl playback needs more overall gain than digital playback.

How much total gain does the I60 have?
 

garylkoh

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Sorry Gary. I did not mean to imply it was a poor design. I just noticed that most integrated amps have much less gain, than most linestage/amp combo's. Vinyl playback needs more overall gain than digital playback.

How much total gain does the I60 have?

I didn't think that you implied that it was a poor design. Just that the PNWAS uses it as their reference and I wanted to correct the technical inaccuracy.

Total gain, as I mentioned, is low at just 26dB.
 

Peter Breuninger

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Wow, 26db for a phono stage is very very low, I was on their site and some combo produces 32 db of gain. Forget LOMCs. This phono stage requires a high turns SUT, IMHO. Did Michael Fremer like it?
 

audioarcher

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Wow, 26db for a phono stage is very very low, I was on their site and some combo produces 32 db of gain. Forget LOMCs. This phono stage requires a high turns SUT, IMHO. Did Michael Fremer like it?

26 db is the gain for the Genesis I60 integrated amp we use at our club. Not for the phono stage. You are not reading the specs correctly for the H3000 correctly. The MM section has 42 db according to their specs. The step up transformer at it's highest setting add's 32 db's to that, for a total of 74 db. I think they are being optimistic about the MM gain. It is more like 38 db. Even so that is still around 70 db total. Plenty for most MC carts.
 

Peter Breuninger

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26 db is the gain for the Genesis I60 integrated amp we use at our club. Not for the phono stage. You are not reading the specs correctly for the H3000 correctly. The MM section has 42 db according to their specs. The step up transformer at it's highest setting add's 32 db's to that, for a total of 74 db. I think they are being optimistic about the MM gain. It is more like 38 db. Even so that is still around 70 db total. Plenty for most MC carts.

I stand corrected... the post mislead me. The Allnic site was also a little confusing as to overall gain. 26db for a linestage is normal. Sometimes I miss the thread drift.
 

audioarcher

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I stand corrected... the post mislead me. The Allnic site was also a little confusing as to overall gain. 26db for a linestage is normal. Sometimes I miss the thread drift.

No worries. 26 db is normal for a linestage, but that is the total gain for the linestage and amplifier section in the Genesis I60 integrated amp.
 

garylkoh

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No worries. 26 db is normal for a linestage, but that is the total gain for the linestage and amplifier section in the Genesis I60 integrated amp.

....which is low.

THX standard is 27dB for a power amplifier, and most preamps should have at least +12dB of gain.
 

cjfrbw

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Apr 20, 2010
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I guess a component has not arrived until it has been roundly praised and then roundly trashed. I love my H 3000. Full and rich tonality is my master rather than etched detail. Lovers of hard core audiophile skeleton sound may not find that satisfactory.

The H 3000 not going anywhere unless I upgrade to the H 5000. I also prefer the HA 3000 head amp with the H 3000 MM input.

I use the H 3000 with a mercury vapor rectifier.

Also rolled the nuvistors on the HA 3000 head amp. I didn't think you could roll nuvistors and there is very little information if any about the sound of different ones, but I got a pair of Sylvania yellow labels that sound fuller in the lower midrange, just the right touch for analog.
 

rockitman

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Also rolled the nuvistors on the HA 3000 head amp. I didn't think you could roll nuvistors and there is very little information if any about the sound of different ones, but I got a pair of Sylvania yellow labels that sound fuller in the lower midrange, just the right touch for analog.

That is interesting. I will have to look for that brand of nuvistor and try it out. What model number on the sylvania's, is it the same as the stock rca's 7895 ?
 

cjfrbw

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That is interesting. I will have to look for that brand of nuvistor and try it out. What model number on the sylvania's, is it the same as the stock rca's 7895 ?

My unit is an original HA 2500 (push pull, four nuvistors) that was upgraded to 3000 status by KS Park, but uses just two 6cw4 now in single ended. I think the 7895 may be electrically similar, but I haven't tried one.

The standard mass production green label military nuvistors sound great, but have an upper midrange emphasis. I believe the ones in my unit are originally Sylvania green label of USA military boxed origin. I think the yellow labels may be Sylvanias of Dutch Philips origin. The nuvistors seem to have the same variations of mixing of manufacturers and mixed up labels as other tubes, very confusing. Also, nuvistors don't have a lot of information about them. I was just surprised that they do sound different, maybe like the variations between Western Electric 417a and5842 small tube types.

Unfortunately, it is going to be a shot in the dark due to lack of info and general feedback from the audio internet community. The good news, nuvistors are relatively inexpensive and you can buy a bunch and experiment.

One of the problems with nuvistors is they have those tiny brass pins that corrode easily and make them noisy. I use a fine grit diamond metal nail file to gently brush the pins, coat them lightly with contact enhancer, and it tends to keep their inherent noise level down. This should probably be done every few months to year depending on how the noise level increases.
 

MylesBAstor

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My unit is an original HA 2500 (push pull, four nuvistors) that was upgraded to 3000 status by KS Park, but uses just two 6cw4 now in single ended. I think the 7895 may be electrically similar, but I haven't tried one.

The standard mass production green label military nuvistors sound great, but have an upper midrange emphasis. I believe the ones in my unit are originally Sylvania green label of USA military boxed origin. I think the yellow labels may be Sylvanias of Dutch Philips origin. The nuvistors seem to have the same variations of mixing of manufacturers and mixed up labels as other tubes, very confusing. Also, nuvistors don't have a lot of information about them. I was just surprised that they do sound different, maybe like the variations between Western Electric 417a and5842 small tube types.

Unfortunately, it is going to be a shot in the dark due to lack of info and general feedback from the audio internet community. The good news, nuvistors are relatively inexpensive and you can buy a bunch and experiment.

One of the problems with nuvistors is they have those tiny brass pins that corrode easily and make them noisy. I use a fine grit diamond metal nail file to gently brush the pins, coat them lightly with contact enhancer, and it tends to keep their inherent noise level down. This should probably be done every few months to year depending on how the noise level increases.

cj used nuvistors over a decade ago and my experience was they all went noisy in three or four months :(
 

rockitman

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Sep 20, 2011
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My unit is an original HA 2500 (push pull, four nuvistors) that was upgraded to 3000 status by KS Park, but uses just two 6cw4 now in single ended. I think the 7895 may be electrically similar, but I haven't tried one.

The standard mass production green label military nuvistors sound great, but have an upper midrange emphasis. I believe the ones in my unit are originally Sylvania green label of USA military boxed origin. I think the yellow labels may be Sylvanias of Dutch Philips origin. The nuvistors seem to have the same variations of mixing of manufacturers and mixed up labels as other tubes, very confusing. Also, nuvistors don't have a lot of information about them. I was just surprised that they do sound different, maybe like the variations between Western Electric 417a and5842 small tube types.

Unfortunately, it is going to be a shot in the dark due to lack of info and general feedback from the audio internet community. The good news, nuvistors are relatively inexpensive and you can buy a bunch and experiment.

One of the problems with nuvistors is they have those tiny brass pins that corrode easily and make them noisy. I use a fine grit diamond metal nail file to gently brush the pins, coat them lightly with contact enhancer, and it tends to keep their inherent noise level down. This should probably be done every few months to year depending on how the noise level increases.

Seems like 7895 == 6CW4 == 6DS4

I'm not 100% sure if 6DS4 is an equivalent or not.
 

cjfrbw

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cj used nuvistors over a decade ago and my experience was they all went noisy in three or four months :(

The Allnic units use gold plated tube sockets with gel impregnation. In many older nuvistor products, the sockets would corrode as well as the pins. I think the pins of nuvistors make them much more sensitive to corrosion because of the small sizes. Some of the nuvistors come with very long leads that look like they were intended to be directly soldered, and that may be the best way to assure corrosion free contact and low noise longevity.

As stated, if they get noisy in the Allnic, the tube sockets won't be to blame and my own experience is that cleaning the pins and using a dash of contact enhancer quiets them right down again. I have had the unit for several years now.

The nuvistors right out of the box need to be cleaned and treated before insertion, or are you are going to have some noisy fireworks when plugging them in new.
 

cjfrbw

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Seems like 7895 == 6CW4 == 6DS4

I'm not 100% sure if 6DS4 is an equivalent or not.

They seem to have similar specs, but I would seek advisement from David Beetles or KS Park before attempting subs that vary from the tube numbers in the original unit. Nuvistors are extremely sensitive, and it might not behoove to use blind subs with different tube numbers, although I have done this in the past with some larger tube types with good results.

I gather that the 7895 is an industrial (sturdier?) version of the 6CW4.
 

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