Cheap tube amp

[qwert95]

So, I'm finally getting a pair of decent headphones (Sennheiser HD 6XX, MassDrop running in this moment)

While I'll surely one day buy a decent DAC + AMP combo, at the moment I'll just keep feeding it from my pc integrated audio card (Realtek ALC889A, which is meh)

The thing is that I'm really curious about tube sound.

I found on the web that this € 40,00 tube amp is not that bad for the price : NobSound NS-08E. What do you think?

Also I found that a user changed the valves with a couple of E180F (€ 9 for a pair) and got great improvements.

Is this wasted money or should I try?

 

[meenmeen1103]

Don't have advice, just following cause interested. Was looking at a set of 250ohm headphones and would need amp, saw Shiit's lineup and the tube ones intrigued me, but don't know if I'd need the Valhalla amp to properly power said headphones

[spwath]

I would not get a tube amp cheaper than the $150 schiit Vali 2.

[Dackzy]

TBF that won't be a good investment. If your table shakes or you by mistake hit it with something, then you will get this ringing sound. Plus it is a weak amp and very low quality, so detail will get lost. I would personally recommend saving up for a Valhalla 2, which actually can be had fairly cheaply if you look used. Though the Valhalla 2 should only be used with high impedance headphones.

[qwert95]

Thanks for all the suggestions!

 

Well, I have news.

I started watching some of youtube videos about cheap tube amps comparison etc. etc., to find out that a lot of those models have tubes in it... and that's it. They don't do anything, just cosmetics.

So I checked about this model, and found a cool guy who retro engineered this amp ( here the video if you want to watch it ).

Making the story short, the tubes here are linked and actually do something, but not the amp job. Basically inside there is a pretty standard op-amp which does the job, and the tubes are there to create some distortion effect (which someone find enjoable too).

So ye, it's an AMP with valves, but not a VALVE AMP, awesome stuff

That video will explain better than me for sure.

 

So all right, at first chance I'll probably get a Schiit Vali 2 or Valhalla 2 depending on my budget