that description matches my experience with the Tung Sol's as well. Did you get the gold pins or regular?

Chris

I got the regulars which at the time were accessible in the UK.

gotcha. Yeah the gold pins are a little richer in the mids to my ears compared to the regulars, but outside of the higher noise floor, I very much appreciate their glassy tone

Hmmm. Update on the Tung-sols. Been running them for a week with no problems. Then overnight the noise floor increased by about 15dB. Such a shame. They sound great.

I've ordered a set of the new Mullards from USA. Fingers crossed they make it safely over the pond.

Have been considering a Michelangelo more recently. The problem is there are so many cool choices out there at the moment.
Im torn between no less than FIVE EQs at the moment, all kind of geared at the mixbus - which is a bit ridiculous. I find myself asking the question "how many stereo EQ units can one have before it just seem silly?"

However, on a recent record, during the mastering stage , I was auditioning various ITB EQs, at the end of my hardware chain - and after narrowing them down, was left with both the Oven and Michelangelo. Somehow, I found that using both of them - set pretty aggressivley - sound sublimely good. I think another poster mentioned this. No now, I find myself in a situation whereby I would buy both of these units - which seems like it might cost a good ten grand. Ugh, decisions decisions. The oven seems like it was made for the michelangelo, which to me was not at all intuitive as one might think they would quickly add up to be "too much"

Yep...that sometimes happens to me too, though with the Sol EF806's more than the 12ax7's. Good luck with the Mullards...I have found them to be generally quite reliable and often have a relaxed top end that can be nice.


haha...welcome to the rabbit hole of searching for tone! I'm a hopeless addict.

So interestingly enough you have picked up on something important that a lot of people don't realize or miss. The Michelangelo (tube version) is 100% triode tube based and dominated by even order harmonics (for the most part) which present themselves as a rich thickening kind of color. You will also notice a low mid warmth that is unique to triodes (especially with a 12ax7). Many people call this a warm sheen or a kind of glossy texture.

The Oven is mosfet and pentode tube based and is all about odd order harmonics. You are getting in many ways the opposite of the triode sheen of the MA. instead you should notice a more aggressive punch and a kind of detail and transient enhancement. I liken it to more of a "the sound is not coming at you from the speakers....it is inside your brain" kind of effect.

Thus, you are hitting on the fact that the combination of the two is providing a full range of texture to your mixbus which is often how I like to work.

Really cool, never thought to use them together before. You won’t be sorry with a hardware Michelangelo to start.

I already have a good amount of tube gear in the mastering chain, so I decided to go with the solid state/mosfet Michelangelo (with the 1/3 gain mod). Been loving it so far and its finding its way on to every master. Chris said it would be cleaner and more punchy than the tube version and his description seems to be right on point. It adds a really pleasing saturation that enhances transients and density. Playing around with the calibration settings will also allow you to get more or less color out of the mosfet circuit, so experimentation is key. Currently i'm running it in the middle of the chain (right after the Massive Passive). Anyways, for those who don't want to hastle with tubes, don't hesitate to go with the solid state version.

I've had both the solid state and the tube (not at the same time) and they're both great, but the solid state is some of my favorite saturation of anything I've ever owned. I work with metal mostly and it's ability to add aggression without smearing, narrowing or other adverse effects is incredible.

After eyeing the MA for quite some time and mulling on how badly I "needed" one , I've finally now pulled the trigger and just purchased unit #250 from a private seller on Reverb. Very excited to get my hands on it -- the enthusiasm in this thread for >10 years I think speaks for itself!

I have a couple questions in the meantime:

• The seller tells me that while the tubes in the unit are still the factory stock from 2021, they haven't noticed any degradation in sound quality and have generally kept the unit powered off when not in use. I'm presuming at this point a fresh set of tubes couldn't hurt?
• What sort of break in time should I allow for a new set of tubes?
• Is there a specific calibration procedure beyond setting the controls to neutral, running a test tone at a preferred amplitude, and and adjusting the L/R calibration to achieve balanced unity gain output?
• This MA will almost certainly be placed after a LTL Silver Bullet mk2 in the chain. Although the LTL has excellent gain staging control on its 2 primary mojo amps, the 3rd color amp only has an input drive control -- hence, on the occasion that I want to drive that 3rd color amp hard, the output ends up being rather hot. I'm guessing it'd be worthwhile to calibrate the MA to a higher dBu to leave enough headroom for these instances? Curious what experienced users think here w.r.t. allowing adequate headroom for the MA.

Thanks for any/all input!

I'm running my MA before the SB, but you don't need to push the level of the first mojo block harder in order to get what you need from the C block (IME). You just set the level as you want it, and then turn the drive knob of the C block. If you find that driving it increases the level, then you can turn the level down on the first block and increase the drive of the C block. Should give the same result at the desired level before hitting the MA.

Nevertheless, it wouldn't be a bad idea to calibrate the MA lower, as sometimes with the agression knob at 1 is still too much for some material.

Huh, interesting -- which C block module are you running? I have the Fairi-Mu, and since it's a fixed compression threshold it essentially means having to turn up the input gain to achieve the same affect as lowering the threshold on a typical compressor. The manual would seem to suggest that the Drive knob is simply a -6 to +18 dB gain control going into the C amp, so would turning down the gain on the first block and increasing Drive not simply result in the same overall signal level hitting the C amp? Perhaps other modules respond differently.

Oh, you're probably right! Sorry, I'm running the stock Hitmaker 4000 colour module. Probably the gain staging is different with the compressor modules.

Calibrating the MA differently could work, or you could try placing it before the SB. Good luck on your quest!

Ahh yeah that makes sense. Thanks! I'll probably try and calibrate the MA relatively low since I can always hit it with a ton of gain out of the SB when desired.

Well shoot, you were right and I was wrong! Per the manual:

I tested this just now and yes, it works exactly as advertised. I think my misimpression was from attempting to lower the MIX amount of the mojo amp while smashing the Drive in order to get some parallel effects going -- the color amp itself (in my case, the Fari-Mu) has a gain ceiling, but increasing Drive beyond the gain ceiling means the output has a disproportional attenuation. So with Drive and MIX all the way up, the level ends up being lower than with MIX at zero!

Anyway, not to derail this thread into a Silver Bullet discussion -- but thanks for making me take another look at the manual tonight!