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Mysterious Japanese Amp of Unknown Quantity

post #1 of 9
6/20/07 at 3:46am
Thread Starter 
We all like esoteric mysteries here on head-fi and I thought I would contribute to head-fi's collective wisdom with the addition of the SOUND Valve X SE.



I don't know much about it myself. (Google tells me this.) I found it while surfing the Japanese internet shopping site Rakuten. I was looking for a deal on Arcolink cables and found this instead:

http://www.rakuten.co.jp/audiocore/4...647178/647179/

In case you can't read Japanese - google translation:

http://translate.google.com/translat...language_tools

Edit: I found the manufactures website. It looks Japanese. I love this quote from the website: "There is an unknown possibility in the head phone" Oh... I dare to go there...

http://tokyosound.co.jp/sound/valvexse.htm

It seems to have lots of options with the 12AU7 tubes. I'm willing to take the plunge but I was also eyeing another Japanese tube amp presently.

Contribute! Does anyone know anything about this headphone amp?
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post #2 of 9
6/20/07 at 4:18am
risky, not exactly cheap. GL though, i'll wait for your review
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post #3 of 9
6/20/07 at 4:27am
Where's the antenna? It looks like one of those old mini-TV's.
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post #4 of 9
6/20/07 at 8:00am
that is the coolest amp i have ever seen period.

are you kidding me?

even if it sounded horrible, I would keep that on my desk for looks
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post #5 of 9
6/20/07 at 9:15am
I had this amp before, that was a former version of this one (non-SE version). That was my first headphone amp.
This gets extremely hot and sounds good for the price. This is a warm sounding amp and it's a good match to my SONY SA-5000(sold), it alleviates harshness of the SA-5000.
Be careful, this works on 100V.
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post #6 of 9
6/20/07 at 10:09am
Thread Starter 
Well thats good to know. But Sasaki, write more of your thoughts! They'll be part of head-fi forever. Reading the manufacture's page, it sounds like all their gear is designed to be on the warm side. I don't think any amp designed and built in Japan is risky (clc), but I understand Air Tight it ain't.

@donor I think it looks pretty cool too.
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post #7 of 9
6/20/07 at 6:56pm
Thread Starter 
I have a question of a electrical engineering nature. What effect does this amps 650mW per channel have? Does that mean high current? Most amps are much lower per channel by half. Singlepower amps average around 500mW per channel. I know it has a relationship with the headphones impedence but I don't understand it.
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post #8 of 9
6/20/07 at 7:53pm
Looks good. It's funny how Japanese amps are so little talked about on head-fi.
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post #9 of 9
6/21/07 at 2:53am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dept_of_Alchemy View Post
Looks good. It's funny how Japanese amps are so little talked about on head-fi.
It's not too funny, Japan is pretty far away.

But I do like seeing the head-fi world expand a bit, choice and oppurtunity is what is going to make this hobby so interesting. I guess there is not to much to say about the 650mW per channel. I guess in reality you would need a tiptop PS anyway to feed it reliably.
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