Hi George,
I used the stock Moscode 401HR amp that we ship with the stock power cord. I used the Electro-Harmonix 6CG7s as the cathode followers for both days and they are what we ship.
On Saturday I used ECC88/6DJ8 in the first gain stage sockets. I grabbed 4 6DJ8s from our main office when I picked the amp up the week before. They were from our parts bin and were “virgin commies” that were pulled from Moscode 300/600s that have come in for upgrades.
On Sunday I used Sovtek 6H30pi tubes in the first gain stage and again those are what we ship the amp with. I didn’t use any super exotic NOS tubes or power cords.
The blind test was setup very quickly and nobody tuned their amps, they just set them in the group. I’m sure that given time to tune and setup, that all the amps could have performed better. This comparison was very ambitious, hats off to Denny and TAAS for setting this up. The event was informative, but not definitive with different types of amps, power ratings, tubes (PP/SET), SS, etc. One would have to live with each of these amps for a while to truly know how they would work in their systems.
I came away with a reinforcement of knowing that I prefer the sound of tubes, but that is my preference. Some people love bass, so they lean toward SS. I want human voice to move me and tubes do that.
I also came away knowing that Canadian hospitality is alive and well and that TAAS is populated with a good bunch of fellows.
Gage Rommel
Moscode, Inc.
