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Romy the Cat wrote:

After a few month of living with YO186 I think I know everything about this tube. I do not use the YO186 all time and I think the explanation why I do not use it all time would well describe what YO186 is and how I use my MF channel. The way how Milq is made the replacement of MF tube is VERY simple and takes less than a minute, including the recalibration. In fact I do no replace the MF tube but what I turn the amp I have an idea what kind listening it will be and I plug the appropriate tube for a given type of listening. The YO186 is a tube that I, at my best, would describe as “fucked up” tube. I do not know (or care) about the distortions of this tube of the specific way how it operates in my amp but it is very far from being linear and transparent. It is in away a colorations generator. I would not use the YO186 full range for instance and it has too much Tannoyish character, if you know what I mean. In DSET application however, the YO186 might do VERY interesting thing if YO186 isused properly. So, what I do, I use the YO186 sparingly. I use it ONLY when I want to listen my playback at full blue and when the material is really worth it. In other times I stick into the Milq the 45 tube that is WAY more linear, neutral and impartial; also the 45 tube is way less interesting and I do insist that the “reference” sound as I defined it I am getting from my playback with the YO186 employed in Milq MF channel. http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=11587 The use of YO186 is like using for specific type of shooting the old Russian-made Helios 40/2 lens at full-open diaphragm. I am sure no one has idea what it is it but I juts would say that there is no one commercial portrait lens in the world that was able to anything similar to what Helios 40/2 did at 1.5 stop. Again, if Helios 40/2 was properly used. The YO186 is in way in the same scale. I do not know how about YO186 vs. the “other tubes in the world”. I did not use a lot of different tubes. I might talk about lenses as I knew lenses much better in past then I know tubes now. However among the DHT tubes that I do have the YO186 is far further into the Helios 40 “distortion” effect. BTW, the original Telefunken 604 has the similar tendency but if 604 juts suggests what is possible, the YO186 takes it the way down to the realm of possible. The Telefunken 604 is in away the Summarex 1.5/85 or the Mamiya 4/150SF. The YO186 is the Helios 40/2 at 1.5. There is nothing else that need to be said.

The last couple days I was running Milq with Type 45 tube in MF, since the temperature is  down and I run the amp non-stopping I substitute my YO186 to type 45 juts for one reason – to preserve more life of YO186. I can’t avoid noticing that playback sound different. In fact it sounds better and I would say more properly – very linear, dynamically and tonally. But it has no “kink” that it had with YO186. With that stupid tube there is absolutely different feeling of rightness. The YO186 somehow makes overtones more important than fundamentals. It almost as if you are blind; you play tennis and hit the ball somewhere in grass. Then knowing that you sprayed the ball with garlic you crawl the field sniffing the ball… The entire game of tennis got converted into sensing …. The type 45 has no “sophistication” in overtones – it juts very-very clean and very tonally impartial – fucking boring!

The overtones with YO186 are great bit then the harmonics. The YO186 harmonics are similar to RE604but wilder. It appears that RE604 introduced more or less liner sophistication of tone as long it deviate from fundamental. The further from the pitch the more Telefunken RE604 glorify the harmonics with own DHT kind. The YO186 acts differently. As long tone jumps out of pitch the YO186 immediately begin to repaint it with some hallucinatory colors, almost like the van Gogh late color parent. What however is the most stunning in the YO186 that is somehow very naturally join that whole salad of tonalities and you do not feel it as a distortions but rather as all normal but beautiful tone. Truly amassing!

Again, I see a lot of similarity with what the Helios 85/1.5 MKII did (if to know how to use it). I was curious if the today young Russians know about that lens and looks at some Russian photo forums. It looks that some of them have discovered it and learn how to deal with it. Here are the images of one of them. The images on the left are from Helios 85/1.5 MKII and on the right by Canon 85/1.2 MKII. Despite that the Canon cost $2000 it is still crappie leans and not the level of Rodenstock or Carl Zeiss soft-focus. Still, it is 28.9 times more expensive then Helios, obviously better from stop 2.0 and up but tale a look what the shitty $69 Russian lens does with the full open hole… Untouchable!

BTW, if you know what I mean then be advised that this Mission Photographer made his experiments shooting on digital that is prohibitive for this level lens. It has to be shut on low-grain 35mm film and then printed at 3 by 5 feet paper. Here is where Helios would show why the unfocus is more impotent then the focus. The YO186 shows off the same…

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