Warning About The Singlepower Extreme - Owners Please Read - Page 26

Sorry to resurrect an older thread about a sensitive company, but at this point in the game, is it pretty much guaranteed that a Singlepower that was built in the last couple years will most likely need inspection/work?  I heard mrarroyo's several years ago and it sounded incredible to my ears.  There are several currently available at prices that surprised me and I have really wanted to try tubes, but I don't think I could afford the repairs if necessary.  Am I better off going with an amp with a better reputation? 

Quote:

Originally Posted by FraGGleR 

There are several currently available at prices that surprised me 

You already know this, but you get what you pay for. If you just want to play around and experiment it might be great. If I wanted to a component that I could buy and forget about and expect day in and day out reliability from I would look elsewhere. You are however not me and as they say, YMMV.

I would try a different manufacturer unless you are buying a rebuilt Singlepower by a know repair shop. I still have my Singlepower MPX3 SE Slam that has been made safe and I love its sound, you may want to look into Mapletree amps by Dr. Lloyd or if you want to spend the moola Red Wine Audio amps.

Claims that the earlier SinglePower amps are better built than the later ones aren't based in reality, even the first ones have serious issues.  Granted, Mikhail wasn't quite as mad in the beginning so no +500VDC on normal 6SN7's fed through a 117V rated switch as the "HV option" or other crap like that. 

Thanks everyone.  I think I will scratch two itches at once (tubes and DIY) and try a Bottlehead Crack kit, maybe a Bijou.  Added bonus of learning more about how tubes work by DIY.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FraGGleR 

Thanks everyone.  I think I will scratch two itches at once (tubes and DIY) and try a Bottlehead Crack kit, maybe a Bijou.  Added bonus of learning more about how tubes work by DIY.

Sounds like a good plan, enjoy.

I have a Singlepower MPX3-slam and I was wondering if anyone could tell if this is one of the safe ones? Never had much trouble with it, except for some noise in the right channel every now and then. It gets quite hot but I've used it for years.. 

We would need detailed internal pics to know if it is safe or not. 

Ok. Thanks for the input. I'm not sure if I am proficient enough to get the lid off. Not seen these particular screws before.. 

They are hex (or Allen keys) and a small imperial size.  To make matters worse the screws are glued in place as Mikhail didn't want anybody to see what was inside. 

drilling out the screws is lots of fun. They are hardened steel and in addition

to everything else, they rust.

How well do the old MP3X SE with Supra upgrades fair up against today's tube amp's within $1k?

If it has been fixed by somebody who knows what he's doing then it's a good amp.  If it's still stock and/or gone over "by my tube tech" or some such nonsense, stay away. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by spritzer 

If it has been fixed by somebody who knows what he's doing then it's a good amp.  If it's still stock and/or gone over "by my tube tech" or some such nonsense, stay away. 

Thanks for that, there is one listing in the F/S section which I assume is a slightly later model (2006) by Mikhail as it comes with the HV option and supposedly it's been working fine since the user bought it back 6 years ago. Although I have no experience fixing up Single power amp's, I'm willing to open it up and post pictures here for you guys to see if part's have been wired up within spec or properly. I feel at worse it will be needing a rebuild or such.