Critical Listening
Turned on new Reisong A10 and it sounded great. Initial comparisons between the tube amp and my SS amp sounded so alike that I couldn’t tell the difference. Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to change anything on this amp. I also bought a Douk Audio VU3 switcher box but I was afraid to try it because even though it supposedly had a dummy load for whichever amp was disconnected from the speakers, I couldn’t find any reviews from anyone who had tried it out with a tube amp. I finally obtained some 220-ohm 5-watt resistors and installed one on each set of output jacks from the A10. Now with some more careful listening while switching between amps, I discovered the deficiencies of the tube amp. With certain music and voices, I could hear the harshness and thinness of the tube amp. Even my wife noticed that when switching to the SS amp, the room seemed to get bigger. OK, I’m happy and excited to find good reason to tear into the A10 and do all the Skunkie modifications. I want the modified version of the A10/A12 to sound better than the SS amp or at least as good but with that tube sound difference.
I’m happy with the sound I already have. My signal path is a WiiM Ultra playing Tidal high-res streamed files exiting the WiiM digitally via a USB cable to a SMSL P100 which is supposed to re-clock the stream in order to reduce jitter ( see CheapAudioMan $60 hack). Then the signal travels to the SMSL SU1 DAC via a short coax cable. The DAC output goes to a Schiit Audio Freya +. The Freya has two outputs so I sent one to the Onkyo NR777 streamer box input and set the receiver to direct mode so no processing takes place (the Onkyo does double duty as a home theater receiver when not in streamer mode). The other Freya output goes to the tube amp. Speaker cables from each amp go to the Douk switcher box and then to my Klipsch RF62 tower speakers. The Klipsch speakers claim a sensitivity of 97 dB so they should perform well with the soon to be modified Reisong tube amp.
As a retired former electrical controls person, I needed a hobby. Even though my last exposure to vacuum tube theory was in the early 1970s, the idea of studying enough to re-learn and extend my knowledge to the point where I can safely and successfully perform these modifications, has energized and excited me. Thank you, Stephe, for putting out the videos that got me going on this path.