While it might look like a wierd time to be leaping into the tube market, Apos has been working behind the scenes on various further tubes together with the brand new Ray 12AU7 tubes that had been despatched to me prematurely of their launch.
Shortage and extra demand is rarely an excellent state of affairs for customers and the previous few years haven’t been form to audiophiles trying to buy new tubes for amplifiers and pre-amplifiers.
The provision of extra frequent tubes; particularly those utilized in pre-amplifiers and DACs is probably not an enormous downside — nevertheless it has turn out to be far more tough to supply actually good tubes and never go broke within the course of.
Output tubes can be found from a wide range of distributors and it’s not a problem to supply EL34s, EL84s, KT88s, 6550s, and KT120s, however the costs have turn out to be virtually silly relying on the model and high quality. A matched pair of Western Electrical 300Bs value greater than some amplifiers.
There may be additionally the problem of counterfeit tubes which have flooded the market which is rarely an excellent expertise for anybody. High quality sellers additionally don’t love the idea of returns in the case of tubes as a result of even they don’t know what they’re coming back from the purchaser.
Matched Pairs…
The outline will get tossed round quite a bit by distributors however is there actually a typical for the way carefully matched, two tubes have to be as a way to be offered as a “matched pair?”
Some sellers do little greater than take a look at leakage and transconductance, and if each tubes present roughly the identical outcomes they’re a matched pair.
Different sellers use curve tracers just like the Tektronix 576 to supply measurements in addition to plotting the anode and display screen currents at a spread of biases. Even amongst these utilizing the identical testing procedures, there isn’t a consensus on how tightly matched two tubes (or extra) have to be to be offered as a matched set.
As a purchaser, you’re virtually throwing your cash at one thing blind except the vendor has a confirmed monitor report of providing dependable and bonafide tubes; particularly in the case of NOS tubes which are very scarce and costly at this level.
Most hardcore tube fanatics have some type of tube tester, however typically they do little greater than leakage and transconductance testing themselves. While you check out the worth of the testers and the educational curve concerned — it most likely doesn’t make sense for many audiophiles to take a position that a lot cash into one thing they might solely use quite sparingly. Patrons need one thing dependable that can give them hundreds of hours of taking part in time.
Ray of Gentle…
So how does Apos match into all of this?
The corporate is cherry selecting the perfect obtainable tubes from particular factories and providing the highest 4-5% of the output underneath the Apos Ray branding. Some may even acknowledge the OEM behind the 12AU7s underneath evaluation however when they’re placed on a tester — the variations turn out to be quite obvious.
The pair that I obtained was as carefully matched as any pair I’ve in my assortment with transconductance inside 50 μ-Mhos for all 4 triodes. Likewise, the plots from eTracer overlay one another practically completely.
To date so good however I can inform that some will nonetheless say that that is nothing greater than Apos rebranding the perfect tubes obtainable and upcharging for all of them.
Apos, nevertheless, is providing a 90-day guarantee on the tubes and a money-back return coverage for those who don’t like how they sound. Remind me once more what number of unbiased sellers or “extremely rated” audiophile retailers supply these phrases.
The packaging is one other level of differentiation; every tube is packed in closed cell foam inside a book-fold field that retains matched pairs collectively (one other difficulty with old-style packaging).
The one want I’ve is that they’d have put the tube mannequin on the top of the field in addition to the lid; these of us with dozens or a whole lot of tubes in storage hate having to undergo them to search out the precise one you want. A weird nitpick however that’s why we’re audiophiles.
The Tubes
The tubes have a halo getter, brief grey plates, twin mica helps, and gold plated pins. On one aspect of the tube is the “Circle A” brand in gold, and the reverse options “RAY” over 12AU7 which is completed in gold lettering as effectively.
The 12AU7 can be utilized in a quite vast number of merchandise and that flexibility is one other component of their attraction; we used the equipped pair in a phono pre-amplifier, stereo amplifier, and headphone amplifier.
Every situation required one thing barely completely different from the tubes and it additionally allowed us to evaluate how dependable they had been.
The motive force stage in each the headphone and stereo amplifier require the tube to perform because the voltage (acquire) amplification earlier than the sign is fed to the facility tubes for present amplification.
Within the phono pre-amplifier, there isn’t a second pair of tubes within the sign path so the 12AU7s have to be quieter and cleaner or they are going to negatively influence the general sound high quality.
Sound
The Apos Ray 12AU7 proved to be someplace within the center from a tonal perspective; not as heat as my Mullards, and never even remotely as medical sounding as my Telefunken and Siemens 12AU7s.
The Ray 12AU7s offered music with quite good soundstage depth, a barely ahead sounding decrease midrange with much less coloration, and larger prime finish extension.
In some ways, it proved to be an excellent choice that gives among the heat you may want from a tube however and not using a lack of element or readability. It’s positively not a lush sounding substitute. They had been additionally not noisy in any respect and I discovered that they had been a really strong addition to the phono pre-amplifier even when used with low output MCs.
Conclusion
The Apos Ray 12AU7s aren’t the least costly choices on the market which goes to boost the ire of some. Nonetheless, if you could find me a greater choice that delivers wonderful sound high quality, reliability, superior packaging, a 90-day guarantee, and correct matching — I’m greater than to match them.
We’re anticipating 6922s, 6SN7s, 7199s and hopefully different choices provided with the aforementioned consideration to element and high quality.
If Apos can proceed to ship this sort of high quality long-term, shopping for premium audio tubes may be a much less dangerous enterprise going ahead.
The place to purchase: $179.99 at apos.audio
