Singlepower Extreme vs. Zana Deux - Page 2

Who made the Bendix 6080?

Color of GW White Horse?

Bendix made Bendix tubes. Ahhh, remember when the USA made THE BEST OF EVERYTHING?

A Brief History of Bendix Red Bank Tubes

by Charles Hansen

Hansen has uncovered the mysteries of these tubes and presents the history of these rugged, highly reliable vacuum tubes made for the military for use in guided missiles. An interesting story of one company's approach to extremely high quality vacuum tube design. Also features Eric Barbour's 1996 article from Vacuum Tube Valley, "Red Bank: The Ultimate Tube," which examines several models of Red Bank Tubes in detail. Datasheets for Bendix Red Bank Tubes are included.


Thanks Skylab and others for explaining there were/are issues with SP.

Ironic, to my view, I got interested in headamps mainly from offerings of SP (and the ASL MG Head). How could the company that helped grow the field do so poorly of late, according to posts I just found.

You know, some entrepreneurs have trouble sustaining--good at creating, though.

A shame--my Extreme sounds fabulous, and to my ear, my fav of the MPx3/PPX3/Supra amps (3) I have tried. The others sound just a tad too warm for me (despite massive rolling); though warm, the Extreme has a slightly brighter edge to it. Might be the tubage. I was never a big fan of the 6SN7--though I love the 6CG7.

The 6AS7-G (though great) maybe a touch too warm for me personally with Senns, the Bendix 6080 is just right. TMHE.


I sensed for a while speaking with a certain other that M. needs a business manager--in fact--he should have gotten an investor when the name was hot--and the economy. I am guessing M. got a bit overwhelmed with success, and maybe managed too much by himself. Also, got lost in details of upgrading to spec. so many amps for so many customers. NO ONE has EVER done that before--and for good reason, apparently. Does anyone REALLY believe M. intended to have bad blood between himself and customers. C'mon. You try to please everyone and remain a businessman, you go down--and almost no one except family will give you credit for trying. Well, maybe credit--not cash. So it goes.

Well, too late for investors now for makers of luxury goods. Bodes ill for his ilk with present chill in world economies. I will go so far as to say--we ain't seen nutin' yet.

Just FYI:

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f5/buy...er-amp-344917/
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f5/mod...ikhail-343787/
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f5/whe...ikhail-333677/
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f5/mik...losing-414254/
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f5/sin...thread-431581/

All I can say about my SP amp is that it sounds terrific while it was working.

Thanks for posts

Unprecedented and sad. No bailouts here?

The units I owned (PPX3, MPX3 toaster, Supra SE) were simple as could be inside, had nice components, looked like silver solder and silver wire. They were all circa 2006 and earlier (like toaster) and all were neatly P2P. The cases were very solid and they ran cool. OK, maybe the large caps (like the Solen can) could have been better supported; but they were either well soldered or strapped with ties and seemed OK as they sat inside. Construction did not seem shoddy by any means. Even ceramic sockets. All were were bullet proof, as I fooled with every possible tube combo--and I typically flick, pull 'em out; pop em in, and flick again and listen. Never a problem; never a whine. I have not opened Extreme--I am not sure PCB or P2P; really do not care. It also seems bullet proof. All 4 amps were a quiet as any I have owned--the quietest, in fact, all of them. Yet, their output was the strongest and cleanest as well. Hard to overload them, high impedance cans or low.

Still glad I have the Extreme. Thanks again for info on posts. I hope somehow it can work out OK for all.

Seems problem for most part (except the ES-1 shown by the formidable S.) was with M., not the amps.

The SP amp that failed me was an Extreme. It's a PCB based and the internals looked neat enough(for my untrained eyes).

Kevin Gilmore posted schematics for one version of the Extreme at his site. I downloaded it and have a printout here. I'm not a designer, but the Extreme looks very straightforward. It only has one transformer, so a clone with nice parts and a Par-Metal case could be put together for $400-$500. It might be a nice project to knock off one of these days.