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RicardoAzenha
13
Jan 16, 2019
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Did you noticed any improvement in the sound quality?
I wonder if I should try to get a cheap tube preamp to see if it changes anything in my set up, but I fear that it will be a wast of money unless I go for a expensive one
myrna_brean
91
Jan 17, 2019
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RicardoAzenhaI would consider this product a bluetooth receiver that has tubes, not a tube preamp with bluetooth. I build, service, and play my own tube guitar amps- and much of what people think of as "that tube sound" is actually from the power tube section of an all-tube amp. How that translates to the HiFi world, I'm not quite sure- but it might be a very safe assumption that you "get what you pay for." That's if you press me to comment on the sound right now, which you did. Even though I have a lot more listening to do before I have much to say on the sound. That being said...
I just placed the Nobsound into my receiver's pre-amp loop, which I accessed by removing a set of jumpers on the back panel of my receiver (left and right pre-amp out to power amp in). So now I can use it as an outboard pre-amp on all inputs. It appears that my receiver still engages the phono preamp when running an external preamp, but that is another thing to consider- if you don't have a line level turntable or an external phono preamp, then placing the unit in-between your turntable and your receiver might be an impedance mismatch and a audiophile sin that I am not even qualified enough to explain. If your set-up can't integrate the unit as an outboard pre, then you would be choosing the input source you most would like to process and wiring it up to that source (RCA), and then using the ext 1/8th" in/out on the unit to process your bluetooth streaming media- with the added bonus of having USB and SDcard inputs for maybe a mp3 or WAV mix. Or just leaving the system as-is and just using the unit as a BT/digital media input, only more glowy.
Now what I can't really, but am going to try to advise you on yet is:
1. How much better does it sound?
2. Should you go cheap or premium?
I still need to spend more time with listening to comment on the sound. I do think it improves streaming, compressed, and BT signal input sources. My remote is broken, so the convenience of the remote, eq functions, and navigating the folder structure of a usb or SDcard mega-mix ? Dunno yet. Does it sound better than a good LP playing on a good turntable, into a good receiver through good speakers connected with good cable? Not sure yet, and this might be subjective anyway. Need more time. But-
If you figure 20-40 dollars for any cheap BT unit with no remote or extra i/o, then you are paying 60-80 bucks for tubes and the features above the cheapest options (cost of tube upgrade included). And did I mention it glows? Like really, I think there are red LEDs by the tube sockets because they glow more than tubes at that current rating should glow. So this unit might be worth the price to you in that respect. But again, it is a BT receiver with tubes. Not a tube preamp with BT.
The odds that your room acoustics, your speaker placement, your subjective discerning ear, your media source, cabling, and power conditioning are all as good as they can get and the only thing you need to make your life complete is a tube preamp, AND that this unit is the tube preamp for you, are ZERO. Because if you had high-end solutions to all of the above issues, then you would not even give this unit a second thought. And there are HiFi people out there that would argue that just more gain and transformers that provide a little color and compression are subjectively better sounding than tubes...
myrna_brean
91
Feb 22, 2019
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myrna_breanThey did send a new replacement remote from China for free... so my road test continues...
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