WooAudio WA5 and Akg K1000's are in the house - Upgraded PSU is in 6/2 - Page 9

Wow thanks for the write-up and the picks of the (monster) 247B's. Let us know how they do over time.

It sounds like they may be a pretty good option. I wish that the NOS WE 274B were not so rare and pricey.

Cheers,

Oh no...

274B bug has bitten.... The Emission Labs tube looks very good though. I thought I found some good reviews as well when I was poking around. I was really hoping that WE would get their new 274B out there at some point.

As a future purchase I was either looking at the Emission's or the rigid plate Sophia.

Always second guessing with tubes. I love it and hate it. But I don't know if SS can really do it for me anymore. It seems like music just lives inside tubes.

Crazy....

Cheers,

Okay it looks like I shot my own foot with the PSU. I have the tendancy to leave my amps on all the time (months). I like to have them avalible to listen at anytime. This caused the PSU to overheat and fail. Jack was nice enough (and quick) about fixing the PSU, just had to buy the replacement part.

I am having Jack look into Maxing out the PSU while he has it.

Cheers,

I am upgrading the PSU (maxing it out). Jack said that he should get it out early next week. He says he needs to rework it to fit the large Jensen caps.

Cheers,

Took just a little longer, but I now have a fedex tracking of my upgraded PSU on it's way back to me. Looking forward to that.

Cheers,

PSU is back and punched up.....

Unboxing --- take 2... :-)

It is back.





After a few trips back and forth across the country - still looks good.




So... What changed? Well the outside looks the same... and that is about it.... Here are some pics of the inside I took, before I sent it back....

Old transformer:




Old Board and Caps:






Now Let's take a look at the new parts:





Now we are talking about some Caps...








Is there anything in those towers? You Bet... they are full....





So first I am just happy to have my WA5 back and operational. Now what has all of this done to the woo I use to love...???

As you might guess from first sound it is even better. I have put in some random low end tubes to play around with, and burn-in. And it sounds great. At this point it is making my HD-650 sound better than they have out of any amp I have ever owned.

One thing... it is deadly silent, which it was not before. Music just breaths out of a nothing background. Kill the input track and crank the volume to max, and there is nothing, not the slightest bit of hiss at max output.

Instrument control has taken a big jump. Not that the old one was flabby, but the tightness and rock solid nature of the new PSU has really given the music an underpinning foundation. This is all from the PSU, the amp section has not been touched.

I will be looking forward to hear how it develops and to start to roll in the good rectifiers (gz34) and the WE 300B's.

Fun times... thanks Jack....

Cheers,

The tops are allen (hex) screws. The bottom is just 6 Phillips screws.

But now that I think about it, I didn't touch a thing in there... didn't want to risk anything.

The music was sounding good all night last night. I turned it off for a rest and then powered it back up this morning for a nice burn-in today.

Cheers,

I have only really tried the 'stock' ones from Jack, and they did not turn me on that much. I ended up with the old GZ34's and they are great. Would like to try 274B or the other 5U4G's at some point. But right now I am happy....

cheers,