Chinese headphone amp: Timester Audio - Page 2

How do you know that Sophia Electric didn't just repackage the Chinese amp and sell it for a higher profit margin? I purchased a Chinese amp last year in a group buy that was identical to the one a US company called SonicAdventure had repackaged and sold it for three times the price.

Mr. Mark Levinson of "Mark Levinson" fame was accused of rebranding some Chinese amps, Korsuns I believe, and selling them for 10-20 times markup under his new brand Rose Audio a few years ago. He later admitted that it was the Korsun amp, and tried to justified his price by saying that he had "added value" to it by tweaking it. Yeah, that must have been a major tweak. It was identical inside out, he didn't even bother to change the casing, just stuck a Rose Audio badge to the casing.

There has also been talks about the similarity of Shelter 501 cartridges from Japan (US$800). Apparently some shrewed business man had once packaged it under another name, Crown Jewel, and sold it in the US for US$2000.

A friend of mine had been telling me about good tube gears coming out of China for years. I didn't believe him until few years ago when I saw a show report on a Hong Kong Audio magazine covering the Hi-Fi shows in China, and my two Chinese headphone amps had me raising my eyebrows too!

Audio Products from China has just recently begun to be marketed and distributed overseas under their own brands. Prior to that, many opportunists just rebadged these good value equipment under some other names and sold them for high markups.

I agree...look at the prima one...its from china I beleive and its just amazing (so I hear, would love to hearone in life)...you gey my point.


so who is going to buy one of these?

The Timesteraudio site says:
'The earphone AMP used vacumm tube,beauterful&euphonious'

Those vacumm tubes do it, ya know. Just beauterful!

Just a quick follow-up on the tubes used:

Power tubes = 6P14 (EL-84 equivalent)

Driver tubes = 6N3's (apparenly, ECC42 equivalent, but they are tough to find).

As I mentioned, changing the power tubes to NOS Tungsram EL-84's made a big difference, really opening the sound up top to bottom.

they have the schematic on the listing

http://www.eaudioguy.com/TubePower/xd845t.jpg

the chinese website.

Hi,

I found the manufacture link in China. Unfortunately, it is in Chinese (although you can find a link to English version in the upper right corner). It just did not work when I tried! I just doubt if it will be cheaper if you guys just buy it from the factory directly!

http://www.timesteraudio.com/t_products/t200.htm#

Nice post. Currently I'm considering buying a headphone amp from China. When I read your comments about Mr. Mark Levinson and his rebranding story Korsun <=> Red Rose I remembered that one of the candidates is de Korsun μ5. The Korsun website is down at the moment and I cannot get the specs from the official source. Anyway, magic google has cached the page so I can show you some specs:

Frequency response 10Hz ~ 40KHz (-3dB)
Total harmonic distortion <= 0.05% (600 Omega loads)
Signal to noise ratio 96dB
Output >= 100mW (600 ohms loads)
Suitably impedance of headphones 32 ohms ~ 600 ohms
Dimensions 86 (w) ×208 (h) ×270 (d) mm
Weight 2.8Kg

The look of the amp is a bit ugly but no so bad...



You can take a closer look at those images provided by NY Sound

front photo
back side photo
part photo
side photo

And definately it looks like a Mark Levinson's... Just take a look at the Rosette 2 Phono Preamp



The amp lists for 500 $ in NY Sound, though after the discount you get it for 220 $ (crazy, ins't it?). I have a list price from China without delivery of 171 $.

¿Anyone has tested this unit? There are other candidates that I'll coment on later.

Godbye fellas.

And I'm almost sure that this Sophia Electric™ Amplifiers is a rebranding of the great Mingda chinese amps. Compare this images... Not the same product but they are excesively simmilar aren't they?

MC767-RD Head Amplifier




MC300-AA Valve Integrated Amplifier (the first class)



Compare this to this close-up of the Sophia Electric™ 300B

We also have this in our forum, mingo-hmw.com:
http://www.mingo-hmw.com/phpBB2/view...t=3378&start=0

Ignore all the chinese desp since it's about the same thing.
Note the price: HKD1300, 1450 for Tube Retifier.
We are talking about 166/185 USD.

Anyway, I have tested it for a while in my room, using Marantz CD34 (aka Philips CD104) as source, an IBM T42 notebook and KEF Coda 7SE.
USB DAC works without flaws. Driving Coda 7SE with decent volume and tuby sound.

It also makes my HD540 Reference Gold (600 ohm) sounds well, but I consider it's a bit veiled and dark. Sweet vocal and better dynamic then my Cute (from www.firestone.idv.tw) headphone amp with OPA637 and OPA2604.

A major PC Magazine in Hong Kong also have a tiny review on it. Comment is "Great cost/perfromance ratio". I dont have chance to compare it with Melos SHA-1 though.... but I guess it means nothing.

how can I order the silver black, or all black version? how much would it cost?

You may contact the seller at wkchenghk2000@yahoo.com.hk

However I dunno whether he will make it or not, since it's not yet avaliable in any outlet and can only order throught group purchase.

is he the owner of timesteraudio?

TimesterAudio T-200

I was at the TimesterAudio shop two days ago. I tested out the T-200 mini vac amp. Armed with my ATH-W2002 and Ipod , I was not impressed with the default setup, the sound was dull, missing the hi and lows. just happen the designer of the amp was in the store, so I told him what I was think of his amp. He was so polite and accepted my opinon, he started to replaced some of the component in the amp as well as the driver tube to EL-84. WOW!!!!! it was totally two different amps. Needless to said, I walked out the store with a big smile on my face and lugging an 12 pound amp on my back... Great people to work with...

How much did you pay for it??