boomy3555
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2008
- Posts
- 2,966
- Likes
- 11
Well it finally came today. The third try. this time via Hong Kong Post instead of EMS. It was well packaged and came with all the little cheapy goodies listed on eBay. A funky blue RCA, 3.5 to RCA cable, and 3.5 to 6.3 adapter. Personally I would suggest that Indeed keep the little cheapie things. If you care enough to want a tube amp, chances are, you'll already have better IC's than what came with the amp. Popped in the tube and powered up and warmed up for about 1 hr before first listen. First listen came from my Ipod 5.5 gen. 80gb Video headphone out>>>Milian's 3.5 neutriks OFC cable dual canare RCA >>>>>indeed amp via the 3.5 input on the front panel to the right of the volume knob to my Denon AHD7000's
Right off I could tell that this is money well spent. smooth warm and clear with not even a hint of brightness. I then ran from the ipod LOD instead of the H/P out and the SQ was slightly brighter and less controled but still very smooth.
I listened to my slighlty higher impedence. Fostex T50RP's and they really like this tube idea alot. A much different signature than the Denons, but we're talking apples and tangerines here between the Denon and Fostex.
Anyway overall first impression are very good for SQ.
There are a couple of minor poor build issues I found. The RCA and 3.5mm input jacks are of very poor quality and any movement of the IC in the plugs causes signal cut out. And I do mean "any". This is only a minor concern as I plan to run this amp as a pre-amp and I will pull the RCA jacks and run hard wire from the board to the input board of the Topping SS amp.
There is an indent in the volume pot at 50%. When I first turned the volume knob before powering up, I felt the indent and I was afraid that they had installed a balance control by mistake.
The 6.5 gold headphone output is strong and firm with no conectivity issues. I have posted a couple of pics of the RCA sent with the unit so you can see that the RCA jacks are out of alignment even on the inside, as the angle of the IC in the pics is the natural direction of travel for the plugs. even pushed in all the way, they are still at this angle.
More Later.
Oh One More Thing. This little baby runs pretty warm to hot. don't even think of touching the black heat dissipators on the right and left rear of the amp..It will burn you !!
Right off I could tell that this is money well spent. smooth warm and clear with not even a hint of brightness. I then ran from the ipod LOD instead of the H/P out and the SQ was slightly brighter and less controled but still very smooth.
I listened to my slighlty higher impedence. Fostex T50RP's and they really like this tube idea alot. A much different signature than the Denons, but we're talking apples and tangerines here between the Denon and Fostex.
Anyway overall first impression are very good for SQ.
There are a couple of minor poor build issues I found. The RCA and 3.5mm input jacks are of very poor quality and any movement of the IC in the plugs causes signal cut out. And I do mean "any". This is only a minor concern as I plan to run this amp as a pre-amp and I will pull the RCA jacks and run hard wire from the board to the input board of the Topping SS amp.
There is an indent in the volume pot at 50%. When I first turned the volume knob before powering up, I felt the indent and I was afraid that they had installed a balance control by mistake.
The 6.5 gold headphone output is strong and firm with no conectivity issues. I have posted a couple of pics of the RCA sent with the unit so you can see that the RCA jacks are out of alignment even on the inside, as the angle of the IC in the pics is the natural direction of travel for the plugs. even pushed in all the way, they are still at this angle.
More Later.
Oh One More Thing. This little baby runs pretty warm to hot. don't even think of touching the black heat dissipators on the right and left rear of the amp..It will burn you !!
