Does Anyone Know If This Tube Amp Has a Built in DAC?

[Morgan Cookson]

Im looking into tube amps and im relatively knew too the audio scene, and i cant for the life of me find out weather i need too have a DAC for this amp https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284053199006?chn=ps&mkevt=1&mkcid=28. and if it does have one is it advisable too get an external one?

Also anything eals i would need too know about it would be greatly apricated as i don't know all that much about amps - Thanks


EDIT: also if it does need one recommendations would be extremally helpful

[Kilrah]

The only input is RCA, so there's no DAC. If there was one you'd have a USB input. 

[manikyath]

protip: if you wonder if it has a DAC, look at the inputs, if there's no USB connector, it doesnt have a DAC.

 

besides that.. with the risk of stepping on some audiophile toes..

i've no idea about the tube amp scene, i'm rocking an amplifier from the days when "tube amps" were just "amplifiers".. but that thing looks FAR too theatrical to be a piece of audio equipment worth your £300.

[Morgan Cookson]

13 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

The only input is RCA, so there's no DAC. If there was one you'd have a USB input. 

Thanks

[Morgan Cookson]

11 minutes ago, manikyath said:

protip: if you wonder if it has a DAC, look at the inputs, if there's no USB connector, it doesnt have a DAC.

 

besides that.. with the risk of stepping on some audiophile toes..

i've no idea about the tube amp scene, i'm rocking an amplifier from the days when "tube amps" were just "amplifiers".. but that thing looks FAR too theatrical to be a piece of audio equipment worth your £300.

I was having the same thoughts so im still on the fence, Thanks for the advice

[8tg]

12 minutes ago, manikyath said:

besides that.. with the risk of stepping on some audiophile toes..

i've no idea about the tube amp scene, i'm rocking an amplifier from the days when "tube amps" were just "amplifiers".. but that thing looks FAR too theatrical to be a piece of audio equipment worth your £300.

These cheap tube amps are really mediocre, they’re like people who tuned Pontiac Fieros into bootleg Ferrari F40’s with cheap body kits. You can make something look the part all you want, but there’s a reason why decent audio equipment hits the 4 digit range quick, you need the hardware to back up the sort of face value features.

This is really in the realm of diminishing returns but on the low end market, its paying 300$ for something that’s likely not going to really sound any better or provide any better features than any other basic cheap amp would, and it’s not even close to the range where it would be some kind of “good value” option people try and find against 2-3000$ amps.

 

[Morgan Cookson]

27 minutes ago, 8tg said:

These cheap tube amps are really mediocre, they’re like people who tuned Pontiac Fieros into bootleg Ferrari F40’s with cheap body kits. You can make something look the part all you want, but there’s a reason why decent audio equipment hits the 4 digit range quick, you need the hardware to back up the sort of face value features.

This is really in the realm of diminishing returns but on the low end market, its paying 300$ for something that’s likely not going to really sound any better or provide any better features than any other basic cheap amp would, and it’s not even close to the range where it would be some kind of “good value” option people try and find against 2-3000$ amps.

 

Hm yeah i see your point.. so do you think its even worth going for tubes since i cant really spend much more than 300 (also considering the only headphones i own atm are DT 990s)

[8tg]

14 minutes ago, Morgan Cookson said:

Hm yeah i see your point.. so do you think its even worth going for tubes since i cant really spend much more than 300 (also considering the only headphones i own atm are DT 990s)

Tubes are fun, if you like tubes and it’s got the physical connectivity you want then its ok, it’s just don’t expect it to really be anything amazing.

But if you’re just looking for good function and value:

https://www.schiit.com/products/magnius
100$ less, can do 600 ohm headphones, and has the connectivity for whatever else you want to slap on it, if can power decent speakers as well.

Now this is just an amp, so if you want better than your computers onboard audio capabilities you’ll want a dac, but you can plug your laptop or whatever into this and your headphones or large desktop speakers into the amp and it’ll be dope.

Schiit is the defacto standard for good value small scale audio equipment on a budget, even their most entry level stuff is pretty good for what it’s meant for.

[Morgan Cookson]

8 minutes ago, 8tg said:

Tubes are fun, if you like tubes and it’s got the physical connectivity you want then its ok, it’s just don’t expect it to really be anything amazing.

But if you’re just looking for good function and value:

https://www.schiit.com/products/magnius
100$ less, can do 600 ohm headphones, and has the connectivity for whatever else you want to slap on it, if can power decent speakers as well.

Now this is just an amp, so if you want better than your computers onboard audio capabilities you’ll want a dac, but you can plug your laptop or whatever into this and your headphones or large desktop speakers into the amp and it’ll be dope.

Schiit is the defacto standard for good value small scale audio equipment on a budget, even their most entry level stuff is pretty good for what it’s meant for.

Thank you so much that might well be perfect, i was looking at their modi dac before hand as well so il defiantly consider it

[Morgan Cookson]

1 hour ago, 8tg said:

Tubes are fun, if you like tubes and it’s got the physical connectivity you want then its ok, it’s just don’t expect it to really be anything amazing.

But if you’re just looking for good function and value:

https://www.schiit.com/products/magnius
100$ less, can do 600 ohm headphones, and has the connectivity for whatever else you want to slap on it, if can power decent speakers as well.

Now this is just an amp, so if you want better than your computers onboard audio capabilities you’ll want a dac, but you can plug your laptop or whatever into this and your headphones or large desktop speakers into the amp and it’ll be dope.

Schiit is the defacto standard for good value small scale audio equipment on a budget, even their most entry level stuff is pretty good for what it’s meant for.

Yeah im gonna go with Schiit but just too check, do you know if the moduis dac be a bottleneck for the Valhalla 2? since I've seen from other places its advised the Valhalla 2 go with the Bifrost but its expensive
https://www.schiit.com/products/valhalla-1
https://www.schiit.com/products/modius

[rice guru]

When going with tubes considy pricing of the tubes that's gonna get you to your target sound signature as that's gonna cost extra. For me cost me an additional $150 CAD for my hybrid tube amp. But the Valhalla I recall being super neutral and if that's not what your after tubes are the best way to alter the sound of the amp and the tubes that are gonna get you to your ideal altered sound is gonna require a action called tube rolling which can cost a good amount of cash.

 

 

[Psittac]

17 hours ago, manikyath said:

protip: if you wonder if it has a DAC, look at the inputs, if there's no USB connector, it doesnt have a DAC.

 

besides that.. with the risk of stepping on some audiophile toes..

i've no idea about the tube amp scene, i'm rocking an amplifier from the days when "tube amps" were just "amplifiers".. but that thing looks FAR too theatrical to be a piece of audio equipment worth your £300.

Pretty sure it's also a loudspeaker amp which is why it has so many tubes

 

17 hours ago, 8tg said:

These cheap tube amps are really mediocre, they’re like people who tuned Pontiac Fieros into bootleg Ferrari F40’s with cheap body kits. You can make something look the part all you want, but there’s a reason why decent audio equipment hits the 4 digit range quick, you need the hardware to back up the sort of face value features.

This is really in the realm of diminishing returns but on the low end market, its paying 300$ for something that’s likely not going to really sound any better or provide any better features than any other basic cheap amp would, and it’s not even close to the range where it would be some kind of “good value” option people try and find against 2-3000$ amps.

 

I would have to disagree.  Tube amps can be easily enjoyable in the low 3 digit realm.  I have 3 tube amps priced at $120 $170 and $260 each and I absolutely adore each of them.  The stock tubes in all of them were boring AF but after getting proper advice on the correct tubes each of them is a pleasure.  I decided to skip right past hybrid and go for tube only.

 

16 hours ago, Morgan Cookson said:

Hm yeah i see your point.. so do you think its even worth going for tubes since i cant really spend much more than 300 (also considering the only headphones i own atm are DT 990s)

What ohm are your 990's? 250 will enjoy tubes I believe anything lower will not.  Tube only amps prefer high impedance headphones.  A hybrid amp on the other hand will work just fine with low impedance headphones because it's the preamp that has tubes and the power side is probably class-D.

 

If you want to go tube only and have a budget of $300 I can highly recommend the Darkvoice 336SE from drop.com or the same amp Darkvoice 336SE from apos (great company, they price match too)

 

If you want to go hybrid and stick to lower impedance headphones maybe look at something like the xDuoo MT-602  xDuoo MT-604  Schiit Vali or any number of hybrid amps. (for some reason the valhalla says it can run low impedance..... not sure why that is as it's tube only)

 

13 hours ago, rice guru said:

When going with tubes considy pricing of the tubes that's gonna get you to your target sound signature as that's gonna cost extra. For me cost me an additional $150 CAD for my hybrid tube amp. But the Valhalla I recall being super neutral and if that's not what your after tubes are the best way to alter the sound of the amp and the tubes that are gonna get you to your ideal altered sound is gonna require a action called tube rolling which can cost a good amount of cash.

 

 

I must have had good luck with tubes because I haven't spent all that much on 3 otl amps.  The first amp I just got lucky with one power and two sets of pre, the second one I tried 1 power and 2 pre set's and it sounded all kinds of wrong and then I got advice from a tube guru and he hit the nail on the head with the 3rd set of pre's and I had him link me ebay tubes for my 3rd amp and nailed them first try.  I would say that no set of tubes was more than $10 a pop but I'd have to go through e-mails to confirm.  I just remember that it was a few bucks each go.

[H713]

The look of this amplifier isn't unusual for a tube amp - it's a fairly standard physical design that handles convection cooling quite well. Tube amps have looked like this for the better part of a century. If anything, the look of this amplifier gives me some confidence that they've actually built a tube amplifier, rather than a solid-state amplifier with some tubes glowing.

 

The basic chassis layout isn't unreasonable. Power transformer in the middle, anemic output transformers on either side of it. VU meters are mostly useless, but fun to watch. 

 

It's a single-ended amplifier, so distortion is going to be super high, but a lot of people also like the distortion from that type of amplifier. Pick your poison. 

 

I haven't seen the inside to judge physical construction, nor have I seen a schematic to know what they've screwed up, but it certainly looks like it could be a reasonable amplifier for what it costs.

 

The Schiit will have better build quality, better reliability and a more refined design than a $300 Chinese tube amp, but it all depends on what you want.

[H713]

Also, there's a reasonable chance that I'm the biggest tube nut on the forum, and I've never seen a huge point to "tube rolling". In well-designed amplifiers, it doesn't make that big of a difference. It's very easy to trick yourself into thinking it's different, and it's very easy to make things much, much worse, but trying to make things better by switching brands and types of tubes without having a schematic for the amplifier in front of you is a bad idea, IMO. 

 

[Heliian]

6 minutes ago, H713 said:

without having a schematic

Bingo. 

 

Why is everything exposed on the amp?  Is it just for show? 

 

It looks stupid.  

[H713]

1 hour ago, Heliian said:

Bingo. 

 

Why is everything exposed on the amp?  Is it just for show? 

 

It looks stupid.  

That's fairly standard for tube amps. Look back to the 1950s and 1960s, and that was fairly standard affair. Dynaco, Heathkit, Harman / Kardon (Citation II, Citation V) etc. Some came with top cover / cages, but that was a mixed bag in terms of thermals. Some amps (my AA-121 is a good example) run screaming hot as it is, and a top cover only makes it worse. A lot of the tube integrated amps (Heathkit AA-100 is a good example) really cook inside - not exactly conducive to a long lifespan.

 

The tubes are exposed this way for convection cooling. An amp of this sort has a fair bit of static power dissipation (both in the filaments and the anodes), so that heat has to go somewhere. From a thermal standpoint, this is pretty much optimal for a convection cooling scheme.

 

This sort of construction scheme has been used for about 100 years. The tubes and transformers are mounted on the top of the chassis, and all of the wiring is done under the chassis. If necessary, a top cover is fitted. Most people like to see the tubes (and in some ways it's good, because you can see if a tube is red-plating), so this has become a particularly popular way of building tube amps. It works quite well, and this one actually looks fairly decent if you ask me. 

 

It should go without saying that the all-tubes-exposed-no-top-cage solution isn't a great idea for big RF amps. It's questionable for audio amps that use tubes with plate caps (since a user could disconnect the plate cap and stick their fingers right on the +500V supply), but I still see it done, and if you badger me enough you might get me to post pictures of my 1625 power amplifier built using this construction scheme. 

Mounting tubes on PCBs inside a chassis isn't a great idea either, IMO. Power tubes get hot (the outer glass can be over 200 C on some tubes), and there is a lot of mechanical force on the tube socket when a tube is changed. The heat combined with mechanical stress has historically proven to be troublesome for PCBs, resulting in lifted pads, cracked solder joints, delamination, etc. It's one of the big issues that Heathkit AA-100s have - the output tubes are PCB mounted, and if the amp saw significant use the PCBs will have severe deterioration. It's gotten better these days with modern PCB construction (FR4 and plated through-holes), but it's still not a great situation.

 

 

[rice guru]

10 hours ago, Psittac said:

 

 

If you want to go tube only and have a budget of $300 I can highly recommend the Darkvoice 336SE from drop.com or the same amp Darkvoice 336SE from apos (great company, they price match too)

 

 

I must have had good luck with tubes because I haven't spent all that much on 3 otl amps.  The first amp I just got lucky with one power and two sets of pre, the second one I tried 1 power and 2 pre set's and it sounded all kinds of wrong and then I got advice from a tube guru and he hit the nail on the head with the 3rd set of pre's and I had him link me ebay tubes for my 3rd amp and nailed them first try.  I would say that no set of tubes was more than $10 a pop but I'd have to go through e-mails to confirm.  I just remember that it was a few bucks each go.

My experience with tubes was pretty good. I just went with new old stock tubes which I got at a deal I intentionally went for .ore expensive tubes but I was just warning OP the potential added costs as if he wanted to have hard limits on his budget tube amps in my experience are a bit iffy to be around. My experience tends to be with m my hybrid. I do plan on going OTL in the future probably a bottlehead crack or something. 

[Heliian]

I've only had "newer" tube amps which are usually enclosed and have a fan or two.  I like the tube amp for it's performance and sound, not for some weird aesthetic.  It just seems the tubes are all too close to each other for any real benefit though.  meh.

12 hours ago, H713 said:

at's fairly standard for tube amps. Look back to the 1950s and 1960s, and that was fairly standard affair

 

[GoldenSound]

I would recommend avoiding nobsound tube amps.
There are not many good, cheap tube amps as tube amps inherently require some components which for good ones will cost a fair bit (such as coupling capacitors and output transformers. In many higher end tube amps the transformer itself can account for the majority of the price of the device). And so with companies like nobsound which make audio gear as cheaply as possible, you don't usually get a good result.

Not to mention practically 0 recourse if it were to have a fault, blow up your headphones or tubes etc, the tubes themselves can be pricey and a poorly made amp can potentially damage them.

Nobsound makes some nice products like their XLR switchers but generally most people will quite rightly advise that cheap tube amps should be avoided, both because they tend to lack proper safety and protection circuitry and because they hardly ever sound good (though there are some specific exceptions).

Probably best to go for solid state