Because of a system reconfiguration related to turntable issues, the Aragon 47k phono preamp is being removed from the system, and my TT will go into the C2300 directly. Tonight I completed the first stage of that, as I have disconnected the Aragon and re-tubed the 2300. I've re-installed the Telefunken (JJ) Black Diamond tubes in the line section that were there before and put a second, unused pair in the MM phono section; a new pair of regular JJ ECC83s tubes is in the MC section, so now the original tubes are all removed from the preamp. I chose the BDs because I remembered liking them and thinking I could live with them; they were removed after about 43 hours or so because some bright recordings were harder to take, compared to the warmer JJ ECC803s High Performance Gold Pin tubes.
I don't know if the line stage BDs have to break in again or not, but in a small sample (about an hour) the BDs are a bit cleaner-sounding, and I noticed a few details here and there I don't recall with the JJs. On a track from my usual Yes test DVD, Steve Howe's guitar was more prominent in the mix, for example. It will be interesting to see how this goes, as this time there are Transparent ICs and PCs in the system that weren't there the first go-round. When there's time I'll get around to playing some LPs.
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SOTA, Grado, SME, Van den Hul, Gingko turntable setup; Pioneer Elite LD, BDP; Sony OLED TV; Magnum Dynalab tuner, antenna; MIT S-video cable; Pangea HDMI cables; DVDO video processor; McIntosh SACD, preamp, power amps; Telefunken Black Diamond preamp tubes; Kimber IC; Transparent IC, PC, SC; Mirage speakers; PS Audio, Shunyata PC; Audio Additives RCA caps; Furman power conditioning; Sanus: racks
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