Not just an replacement, but an improvement!

ever since we make and sell tubes, one of the most occurring questions is: "What tubes must I buy to get ultimate sound out of my equipment". Now, if people ask the question that way, it is no beginner's question. Specially for that reason, answering it is difficult. Some tube doctors have obscure theories and approaches. In several case you are listening to people that have a plain lack of engineering knowledge. They easy level up with customers that have lack of engineering experience too, and before you know it, you listen to something that you don't know what it is.

So be cautious, for any kind of black magic presented to you. That can be self-invented treatments, self invented test methods, or over-testing parameters that don't benefit from that. Fantasy is set no limits, like CD de-polarizers, direction-sensitive interconnect cables, or "sound stones" to place near your speakers.

So.... back to the question: What makes good sound?

The answer we have, is based on a simple principle: The sound chain must be in balance with each other. Lets give an example of a wrong choice. Suppose you have 5000$ to spend, and you spend 4800$ on the amplifier, and 200$ on the speakers. It is obvious that this will not give the best sound for your 5000$. You need to balance the cost between speaker and amplifier such that your 5000$ gives the best result.

When it comes to replacing tubes, this principle is learned the hard way by many users. The sad path we see so many times is this: In some way, people have come to the conclusion tubes sound better than transistors. Then in an existing transistor based equipment, the transistor amplifier is replaced by a tube amplifier. Being aware that this is an experiment, the amplifier may not cost much. So the customer buys a chinese amplifier on Ebay, for just 400$ including shipment and all tubes. After a while, they come to the (valid) conclusion there is something wrong, and the suspected elements are the Chinese tubes. The frustration is very large, when they find out a set of the finest tubes costs more than the whole amplifer. It can take up to two years, but in the end they kick out the original tubes. So it would have been better to buy good tubes from the beginning.

Next step is, buying a set of speakers that are designed for tube amplifiers. (More about those requirements later)

NOW..... the user has the possibility to hear the differences between different tubes. It is what they heard or read about, and finally this is now realized. The step of replacing the amplfier for a quality product is not far away also.

The following is a true story. In 2008, we presented the EML 2A3-Mesh tubes on a HiFi show, playing with a Yamamoto A-011 amplifier, and a set of very nice horn loudspeakers. There was a middle aged woman coming back every day, with her husband, and bringing vintage Pink Floyd CD's, asking to hear them. She was sitting there and I saw tears in her eyes. I asked if she liked the music that much. I kind of expected she would say yes, but what she told me, moved me still. Well yes, the sound was so wonderful, but the sadness was, she spend 20 years of her life, unknowing about this, and these years can not be repeated.

To my opinion, a well balanced set of tube gear is combined the following way.

1) Begin with top quality tube grade speakers. These have following:

• Efficiency above 95dB...100dB.
• Small Size and good sound never went together very well.
• Linear impedance graph. (Ask for one!) Impedance must be 8 Ohms all the way for 8 Ohms speakers. Linear means a line that is worthy the word. No curves like a kangaroo hopping. That may be no problem for a transistor amp, it is a major problem for a tube amp without feedback, since that will badly influence the cooperation of tube and transformer.
• Large surface of bass speakers. There will never be a replacement for VISIBLE surface to move air mass.
• Many small speakers in parallel are not as good as one big one.
• Avoid bass resonance chassis. (The ones with a hole somewhere in the cabinet). Very good is open baffle.
• Don't buy any stories about new invented constructions. With bass speakers there are none.
• No "shout". Often heard problem with high efficiency speakers. Only possible to hear by sound compare and demonstration. Don't let them fool you with non-shouting music, like single voices, or cello play. Bring a hard rock CD, and/or symphonic orchestra with loud crescendos, even if you don't like that sound. Speakers that can reproduce THIS nicely, sure sound better with soft music as well.
• Very large rooms: Take horn driver speakers.
• Very small rooms: Don't take horn drivers. (Some of those can look like a horn, but are not)

2) Connect to this a quality tube amplifier

• It must be of the kind that fits to the effiency. Tube sound develops when:
  • 1) The tubes have something to do (otherwise will sound sterile)
  • 2) The tubes are not stressed (otherwise will lack dynamics)
  • The amplifier should play at sufficient loudness at 50% power maximum power.
  • Don't connect a 2x 50Watt amplifier to 108dB speakers.
  • Don't connect a 2x 2Watt amplifer to 95d speakers
• Single Ended amplifier are more expensive to buy, but often sound better at low power.
• Push pull amplifiers give more output power, but use up tubes faster.

3) Put in there the best tubes you can buy.

When you have all the above set right, you come at this point here. Even a high cost tube will not be overly expensive compared to what good equipment costs, and sure with good equipment you will hear that!

"45 tube"amplifiers

• Best sounding tubes are real woven wire mesh tubes. Forget about so called mesh tubes that are in fact thin foil, with holes punched inside. The last are an optical fraud, when they are sold to you as mesh wire tubes.
• With historical EML tubes we recommended mesh only for amplifiers that have a low hum level. With modern versions however, both mesh and solid plate are extremely low in hum, and outdo normally any NOS tubes with that. The modern versions have a virtual filament center tap to make this possible. Mesh sound is said to be more transparent, though electrical measurements verify just the same performance.

"2A3 tube"amplifiers

• Best sounding tubes are real woven wire mesh tubes. Forget about so called mesh tubes that are in fact thin foil, with holes punched inside. The last are an optical fraud, when they are sold to you as mesh wire tubes.
• Most recommended type is the EML-2A3 mesh.
• You can take EML 2A3-S also, this tube is fully 2A3 compatible, and in case you plan to do so later, it can be biased higher. Because of higher ruggedness, the 2A3-S is very good for push pull, though the mesh version is also suited for that, without limitation.

300B tube amplifiers, recommended tubes:

• EML 300B. This is our standard 300B tube to replace western Electric tubes, giving the classical 300B sound as original.
• EML 300B-XLS. This tube can replace 300B, but is larger dimensions. It has slightly less distortion at higher dynamics still. So this is an upgrade type. For user's words, read "opinions" from the JACMUSIC web site menu. You will soon notice every fourth positive feedback is about the 300B-XLS, whereas this is the total feedback for all sales, of a very wide product portfolio. This tells it all. It is one of our most successful products.
• EML 300B mesh. A specialty for "connoisseurs". We do not line up with a famous Chinese factory claiming to have 40Watt mesh tubes. Claiming that is easy, but making that? We say it is impossible. The EML 300B mesh is not "a 300B with mesh plates". The EML300B is a 520B with mesh plates, and like that we could specify it 22 Watt typical and 28 Watt max. It can be put in any 300B configuration though, since the working point is softer at only 22 Watt. So you can replace a 300B with the EML300B-Mesh if you have a way to set the bias at 22 Watt.
• EML520B-V3. Yes! It can be used, provided you can supply the higher filament current, and have a way to bias the tube right.