I’ve ordered another tube. Won’t be here till one day next week though. Getting it here Saturday was going to cost almost 3x the price of the tube.
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Spoke with Brent Jessie, and he recommended a couple of tubes. The first was a Siemens made nickel plate 12AU7, and the second was an Amperex Holland made medical grade red tip 12AU7. Going to start with the Amperex, which I’ve already placed an order for.
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It looks like you’re going to try a few different tube flavors to see where your preferences lie - I did the same with my Ultralinear+. I’m really jealous that you have to figure out the one tube you want, when I had 3 pairs, so I had to learn how to create the perfect cocktail, when one pair of tubes pushed the sound the wrong way, and I would balance it out again by switching out one of the other pairs.
By the way, I know quite a few people use the black Telefunken with their AIC. If you want a cheap way to find out if Telefunken is the way to go, then I recommend trying a Tesla ECC802S, which used the same tooling as the holy grail Telefunken ECC802S. It will not sound the same, but it should at least give you some insight into how an actual premium Tele will sound. Just be aware that the Teslas sold by Tubemonger are unused (i.e. true NOS) and will therefore need a few hours of break in.
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I’ve already accepted that I’m going to buy the G73R at some point. I just want to do it one tube at a time, so I’m not tempted to constantly switch them, lol.
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I’m realizing that trying tubes is no different than trying a bottle of wine. Blessed is he that enjoys the flavor and character of one that happens to be relatively inexpensive.
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Consider yourself lucky on both aspects of cheap wine and cheap tubes!
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Got the cheap JJ tube that I bought to test whether that hum I was hearing was the “stock” Brimar tube or not. At the moment, it seems like it is just the Brimar tube at fault. So good news there.
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Got the Amperex Holland red-tip in. Also got loaned a French 1956 Radiotechnique and a second Brimar. Thank you once again to @Camus for facilitating that. Some notes on the two loaned tubes.
Radiotechnique: A bit airy, clean. Opens up the already large stage even more. Generally very inoffensive, but not what I’d consider “fun”. Probably a good tube if you want to pull things closer to a more neutral sound. Personally, a tube that I think I might enjoy when I want a change of pace, but not one I’d use normally.
Brimar: My first thought after switching to the second Brimar was that things sounded a little blunted. Detail is still there, but it’s not as immediately noticeable. Warmer than the Radiotechnique. Not as large sounding, but perhaps a touch more accurate in placement because of it. Punch and slam are noticeably stronger. I’m a bit torn on this one. There’s something about its sound that I find wanting.
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Awesome! Give those two tubes a bit of time as they are not broken in at all, probably about 25-40 hours of playback. Happy to read the noise floor was traced back to the first Brimar!
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So far I have been using the Riviera w/ a balanced input: DAC → Shunyata Anaconda-S XLR → Riviera.
In an effort to move away from balanced due to upstream equipment changes, yesterday I put in parallel SE cables so that I can hear the differences simply by changing input selector on the amp:
DAC → Shunyata Alpha V2 RCA → Riviera.
It sounds different. A tad less meaty on the low mids. Maybe a bit more treble energy.
Effect of input transformer? Or cable?
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Probably cable, it’s the exact same circuit inside.
If you want an improvement in performance, at least for less sensitive headphones, drive them from the speakers taps in the back instead of the front outputs.
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Depends how it’s wired, it might use the input transformer for both paths. Or it could bypass it.
You can certainly hear input transformers.
Since you have to open it up or swap tubes you can look, if the RCA is directly connected to the XLR, both. Go through the transformer. If it’s not that simple you’d have to trace the wires.
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How are you volume matching the output from the DAC? If you’re using the td, XLR runs about double the voltage of the RCA output.
Many a times I have caught myself enjoying the balanced output only to realize that subtle change was negated when accounting for this change. I’m only speaking on the DAC side if you are still using the td d1-unity, other DACs can be fully balanced designs and do some trickery for the RCA output.
I noticed this w/ the Ampsandsound Nautilus; per Justin the input transformers can add body and this is what drove me to use XLR in the first place. Same thing, input transformers then into SE path.
Subjectively 
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Say it.
Just confirming there are no input transformers on the aic or levante for XLR.
According to Riviera when questioned they “didn’t have the space”
It could have been my aic or what I was doing at the time but I have a feeling that the inputs were bleeding together a little bit so if you’re able to I’d recommend this connecting just the XLR or RCA and run that test again.
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I have also noticed the xlr and top rca bleeding together in slme circumstances
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Email from Riviera:
All our inputs are same, the XLR input has a extra un-balancer circuit that we designed to sound as similar as we can with the unbalanced one, or better to be as "transparent as possible.
Unfortunately, balanced and unbalanced inputs (or outputs) will never sound exactly same simply because, even using exactly same cable, there will be difference in the connectors and input sockets.
In theory, unbalanced should sound a bit better (it does not have the extra circuit in the signal path), But in real life, it will depend on cables, connectors, and the interaction with other components. so… just use the one that better fit your system.
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Morning Keith
Did you do any further comparisons between the XLR and se inputs?
Thankyou
Two tubes to add thoughts about. First, an Amperex-Holland red-tip, which I’ve had for a while and has been the tube I’ve consistently gone back to.
A-H red-tip: Almost, but not quite the opposite of the Radiotechnique. Where the RT is airy, wide, and clean the AH is warmer, richer, and more musical. It isn’t always the most natural sound, but the coloring is so pleasing that I don’t care. It’s what I want the AIC-10 to sound like most of the time. There’s good weight to the bass, which the RT tube lacks. There might be just the slightest bit of treble roll off, but it’s not enough to take away from everything else that it does well. This is a keeper, and if you want to move the amp in a more “fun” direction I can highly recommend this tube.
Second tube is an alternate to the G73R that Brent recommended to me. I just got it in yesterday, so I’ve only got initial impressions on it.
(1964)Siemens made Nickel-plate: Not as airy as the Radiotechnique, not as musical as the Amperex-Holland. Very clean, good impact, not as wide as the RT but is bigger sounding than the A-H. No noticeable roll-off on either end, but also no particular emphasis. A good, so far, neutral tube. It is the most natural sounding of the tubes that I’ve tried. In fact, if the sound doesn’t drastically change with burn-in, I could see myself preferring this to the A-H for some genres, like Orchestral. I see why people say that the G73R is a must-have if this is an alternate to it.
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