Antonio's 'back home' system

[antonio66]

Pleased to say I will be going and collecting my Quad 57's this coming Monday, will be good to hear them again.

I had to change the pre-amp tubes in my Yaqin yesterday, I'd inadvertently put the wrong type in. Not entirely my fault since I was recommended the valves to put in, unfortunately for me Yaqin have changed the tubes in my newer model and I had not realised. I had put in 12AT7's instead of 12AU7's, I did have a supply of 12AU7's and did not have to purchase the incorrect ones. Well replacing the valves with Phillips JAN 6189's (drop in replacements for 12AU7's) the amp is sounding wonderful through my Tuolihao's.

[Bencat57]

Andrew Jones is not only a really nice man but he does know his way around Quads of all types . It is however noticeable that having the choice of any model he has ESL 57,s as his own speakers . I am sure you're will sound very good indeed after whatever work they needed . Would interested what Andrew did to cure the hum .

[antonio66]

Andrew certainly is a nice bloke, cured the hum and repaired something else as well, all for a reasonable cost. Haven't had time to listen much, but they do sound great now. Since changing to the correct tubes, the amp is in outstanding form.

[antonio66]

Time for an update, the Lumin U2 mini has been sold, I saw an ad wanting a U1 mini just before returning to the uk, a deal was struck, my thinking was I would use my Eversolo A6 in partner with my Soekris dac.. Looking on ebay I saw an Eversolo A8 for a bids sale with only a few hours left, would you believe I won. It was a returned item from the same seller I purchased the A6 from.

I haven't done a direct comparison A6 vs A8, the 8 is simply better. I did a quick A-B with the Soekris against the internal dac of the A8, the Soekris having slightly more body, I can still see some preferring the A8 though. I decided to go with using the A8 on it's own and resting the Soekris, you can see it with LPS on the bottom shelf, so now my rack looks like this.



I swopped over my Quad's for Tuolihao's yesterday, thoroughly enjoying hearing these again. I'm now waiting on a SSD to put my music on for the internal storage in the A8, only listening to Qobuz at the moment. Have to say I am very happy with this simple, no fuss system.

[antonio66]

I've also swopped out the Phillips 6189's for Psvane 12AU7-T's in my Yaqin, another nice improvement right from the off. These are new tubes, purchased some time ago, for use in my RTFLYS amp and give extra clarity, yet still keeping a lovely warmth to the sound.