Lampizator Valve / Tube Rolling Review Thread

plasmod3

Well-Known Member
Aug 28, 2020
566
425
138
44
Thanks, will be good to listen to the GEC. Do you know which years your osram was from?
Ah not really looked into it , I know it is an early tube but can't remember the yr. :) will get a photo of it sometime to post up
 

godofwealth

Well-Known Member
Feb 8, 2022
573
875
108
63
Another one bites the dust. One of my T-100s fizzled out last night. For those who want the score card, here are the tubes that have died so far in my Pacific:

1. KR 242.
2. NOS 45.
3. PSVane 101D.
4. KR 100-D

4 tubes in roughly four months. At this rate, this could become a really long list. I’m going to have to create a separate thread for tube failures on Lampi DACs. If it didn’t sound so good, I’d throw in the towel now on my Pacific.
 
  • Sad
Reactions: christoph

christoph

Well-Known Member
Dec 11, 2015
4,660
4,058
825
Principality of Liechtenstein
Another one bites the dust. One of my T-100s fizzled out last night. For those who want the score card, here are the tubes that have died so far in my Pacific:

1. KR 242.
2. NOS 45.
3. PSVane 101D.
4. KR 100-D

4 tubes in roughly four months. At this rate, this could become a really long list. I’m going to have to create a separate thread for tube failures on Lampi DACs. If it didn’t sound so good, I’d throw in the towel now on my Pacific.
I'm sorry for your misfortune :oops:
Is there a pattern? Is it always the right (or the left) socket or random?
 

Golum

Well-Known Member
Jun 7, 2018
1,806
2,553
405
Lausanne, CH
Another one bites the dust. One of my T-100s fizzled out last night. For those who want the score card, here are the tubes that have died so far in my Pacific:

1. KR 242.
2. NOS 45.
3. PSVane 101D.
4. KR 100-D

4 tubes in roughly four months. At this rate, this could become a really long list. I’m going to have to create a separate thread for tube failures on Lampi DACs. If it didn’t sound so good, I’d throw in the towel now on my Pacific.
Now this is a bit strange - never heard of case like this but burning so many DHT which are far away from being cheapish (except nos 45) i would seriously think about sending the Pac for the check up
 
  • Like
Reactions: the sound of Tao

godofwealth

Well-Known Member
Feb 8, 2022
573
875
108
63
Yes, I was thinking of sending it in too. I’m trying to see if there’s a pattern, but nothing obvious so far.
 

plasmod3

Well-Known Member
Aug 28, 2020
566
425
138
44
Another one bites the dust. One of my T-100s fizzled out last night. For those who want the score card, here are the tubes that have died so far in my Pacific:

1. KR 242.
2. NOS 45.
3. PSVane 101D.
4. KR 100-D

4 tubes in roughly four months. At this rate, this could become a really long list. I’m going to have to create a separate thread for tube failures on Lampi DACs. If it didn’t sound so good, I’d throw in the towel now on my Pacific.
Did you speak to your dealer? Definately something wrong here
 
  • Like
Reactions: shadowlight

godofwealth

Well-Known Member
Feb 8, 2022
573
875
108
63
I’m trying to see if I can figure out a pattern. If this repeats, I’ll contact LampizatorNA for sure. Put in a quartet of new JJ 300Bs today in my Pacific. Will see how they fare. I have another quartet of the same JJ 300Bs in my JJ SET amplifier and they’ve been very reliable there (knock on wood). I hope this is not like the old joke about British sports car lovers always owning two Jaguars, because ones always in the shop!

Speaking of which, how many people here own multiple Lampizator DACs?
 

plasmod3

Well-Known Member
Aug 28, 2020
566
425
138
44
I’m trying to see if I can figure out a pattern. If this repeats, I’ll contact LampizatorNA for sure. Put in a quartet of new JJ 300Bs today in my Pacific. Will see how they fare. I have another quartet of the same JJ 300Bs in my JJ SET amplifier and they’ve been very reliable there (knock on wood). I hope this is not like the old joke about British sports car lovers always owning two Jaguars, because ones always in the shop!

Speaking of which, how many people here own multiple Lampizator DACs?
In goes the sacrificial lambs for some roasting . The lampis are quite reliable but as in any product lemons are known exist
 

godofwealth

Well-Known Member
Feb 8, 2022
573
875
108
63
The “sacrificial lambs” are indeed roasting nicely and sounding quite “tasty” thus far. Fingers crossed!
 

Attachments

  • B137EB0A-1737-4B21-BCE1-138926453271.jpeg
    B137EB0A-1737-4B21-BCE1-138926453271.jpeg
    703.4 KB · Views: 14

abeidrov

VIP Donor
Dec 17, 2015
695
340
443
Moscow
I really enjoy my Lampi with standard KR 242s and basic Rothwell attenuators, which I connected to the RCA cables going into the dac. I should have done it earlier! Now, I am just curious if I get further improvement in performance once the local dealer adjusts my dac to work with 242 tubes as per the Lampizator instructions. My understanding is that some resistor will be installed in the dac to lower the output. Do you think it will be of better quality, than the Rothwell attenuators I currently use?
 
Last edited:

Blue58

Well-Known Member
Jan 20, 2013
890
675
1,155
London, UK
I tried Rothwell attenuators from DAC to preamp to test the possibility of reducing gain and improving the range of my volume control. They lasted all of 5 minutes! I couldn’t believe how bad they sound.

If you use some resistors in the Lampi try the Audionote silver Tantalum or Niobium range.

cheers
Blue58
 
  • Like
Reactions: abeidrov

abeidrov

VIP Donor
Dec 17, 2015
695
340
443
Moscow
I tried Rothwell attenuators from DAC to preamp to test the possibility of reducing gain and improving the range of my volume control. They lasted all of 5 minutes! I couldn’t believe how bad they sound.

If you use some resistors in the Lampi try the Audionote silver Tantalum or Niobium range.

cheers
Blue58
My attenuators are -10dB and they are of standard type: should be connected at the end of RCA cable that goes into preamp. They also have other type of attenuators, where you connect them at a source end. Are you sure you connected them correctly? Also, it might be a burn in issue. In my case, they sound better even with PX25.
 

Zero000

Well-Known Member
Jul 28, 2014
2,985
1,139
478
I also tried Rothwell attentuators and had the same shock as Blue. Just sounded awful. I put it down to the fact I tried the -20DB ones and it was obviously too much attenuation. That said I felt if I went to the -10DB ones they would still be a really bad idea.

That was a good few years back. I have had AN silver tants in my DAC for some years now and they are definitely very good.

I think you need to aim for as little attenuation as possible with the best resistors you can find.
 
  • Like
Reactions: abeidrov

godofwealth

Well-Known Member
Feb 8, 2022
573
875
108
63
I also tried Rothwell attentuators and had the same shock as Blue. Just sounded awful. I put it down to the fact I tried the -20DB ones and it was obviously too much attenuation. That said I felt if I went to the -10DB ones they would still be a really bad idea.

That was a good few years back. I have had AN silver tants in my DAC for some years now and they are definitely very good.

I think you need to aim for as little attenuation as possible with the best resistors you can find.
Why not use a high quality passive preamplifier, like this one?

 

Zero000

Well-Known Member
Jul 28, 2014
2,985
1,139
478
Why not use a high quality passive preamplifier, like this one?

The attenuation to my DAC was made when I was using a tube pre, which could get overloaded by high output from the DAC.

I used an Air Tight passive for years with a top of the line ALPS pot in it. I still have it in my second system.

With my Luxman pre/power amps I find I get adequate volume across all valve types without overloading. It also sounds better than using the Air Tight.

I don't use KR 242 (I preferred their PX25 in my system) but I do use Tesla RD27AS which has high gain.

Was using Dario R86 last night which is definitely low gain. That just has to be the most euphonic tube I own. It just leaves you feeling "this is a bloody nice sound" seemingly almost no matter what you play. A real party trick.

So I just leave it as it is.
 

abeidrov

VIP Donor
Dec 17, 2015
695
340
443
Moscow
Never buy a Lampi dac without built in VC! That should be strong advice to all potential Lampi customers from a good and knowledgeable dealer. I blame my dealer for all the gain issues I have :).

Interestingly enough, I do not hear any distortion from my vinyl rig, which plays at more or less the same level using the highest phono gain setting as my dac with PX25 tubes. Go figure…
 

christoph

Well-Known Member
Dec 11, 2015
4,660
4,058
825
Principality of Liechtenstein
Anyone compare the USB input to streaming directly to the LAN input on the Pacific?
I did and I prefer USB.
Sounds more organic to me.
 

godofwealth

Well-Known Member
Feb 8, 2022
573
875
108
63
Interesting. I find the USB input on the Pac to be pretty awful sounding compared to the sound I get from playing back CDs on my CEC TL0 transport, which is still hands down the best digital front end I’ve heard in 30+ years of owning dozens of digital products. USB was never designed for high fidelity audio. It’s a jury rigged contrived solution. Chord’s lead designer, Rob Watts, says that USB is the very worst transmission medium for digital audio. His preferred connector is optical due to its hugely better RF properties.

I’m not sure if it’s Roon that’s at fault here. Generally, the higher the resolution the bitstream in Roon, the worse it sounds to my ears. There are of course mathematical reasons why this might be true. DSD injects an enormous amount of ultrasonic noise into replay. About the worst thing you can do to is upsample to DSD, which is a guaranteed way to increase noise. There could be other factors. Modern digital recordings seem to have greatly reduced dynamic range, which I suspect is because of the huge compression engineers seem to like.

To this day, the most dynamic sounding classical music albums I have in my 10,000+ collection at home are the 60 year old Mercury Living Presence series, which used simple minimal miking and no compression. About the worst recordings are the newest DSD ones. I attend the San Francisco symphony concerts regularly and have listened to many Michael Tilson Thomas conducted performances (all the Mahler symphonies). The SACD DSD albums of SFO Mahler are an utter travesty of the sound you hear in Davies Symphony Hall. I noticed often when they record live that they label the mike feeds by the DSD channel numbers, and they use hundreds of microphones, all going into a giant compressor/mixer operated by a recording engineer. The resulting sound bears no resemblance to the beauty of live sound. If you want true high fidelity, look no further than the concert hall!
 

plasmod3

Well-Known Member
Aug 28, 2020
566
425
138
44
Interesting. I find the USB input on the Pac to be pretty awful sounding compared to the sound I get from playing back CDs on my CEC TL0 transport, which is still hands down the best digital front end I’ve heard in 30+ years of owning dozens of digital products. USB was never designed for high fidelity audio. It’s a jury rigged contrived solution. Chord’s lead designer, Rob Watts, says that USB is the very worst transmission medium for digital audio. His preferred connector is optical due to its hugely better RF properties.

I’m not sure if it’s Roon that’s at fault here. Generally, the higher the resolution the bitstream in Roon, the worse it sounds to my ears. There are of course mathematical reasons why this might be true. DSD injects an enormous amount of ultrasonic noise into replay. About the worst thing you can do to is upsample to DSD, which is a guaranteed way to increase noise. There could be other factors. Modern digital recordings seem to have greatly reduced dynamic range, which I suspect is because of the huge compression engineers seem to like.

To this day, the most dynamic sounding classical music albums I have in my 10,000+ collection at home are the 60 year old Mercury Living Presence series, which used simple minimal miking and no compression. About the worst recordings are the newest DSD ones. I attend the San Francisco symphony concerts regularly and have listened to many Michael Tilson Thomas conducted performances (all the Mahler symphonies). The SACD DSD albums of SFO Mahler are an utter travesty of the sound you hear in Davies Symphony Hall. I noticed often when they record live that they label the mike feeds by the DSD channel numbers, and they use hundreds of microphones, all going into a giant compressor/mixer operated by a recording engineer. The resulting sound bears no resemblance to the beauty of live sound. If you want true high fidelity, look no further than the concert hall!
Not true! And I have and run a tl0 as well:):) the usb in my setup sounds better than tl0
 
  • Like
Reactions: Golum and abeidrov

About us

  • What’s Best Forum is THE forum for high end audio, product reviews, advice and sharing experiences on the best of everything else. This is THE place where audiophiles and audio companies discuss vintage, contemporary and new audio products, music servers, music streamers, computer audio, digital-to-analog converters, turntables, phono stages, cartridges, reel-to-reel tape machines, speakers, headphones and tube and solid-state amplification. Founded in 2010 What’s Best Forum invites intelligent and courteous people of all interests and backgrounds to describe and discuss the best of everything. From beginners to life-long hobbyists to industry professionals, we enjoy learning about new things and meeting new people, and participating in spirited debates.

Quick Navigation

User Menu

Steve Williams
Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator
Ron Resnick
Site Co-Owner | Administrator
Julian (The Fixer)
Website Build | Marketing Managersing