[bells]

please share your experience regarding the Utopia paring.

I plan on it! Very excited for the utopias because it's hard to imagine them sounding any better than they are

Enjoy month to burn in, then roll tubes. This amp will blow your mind many more times

Also no offense but going from A90 to this is like going from Fiat Panda to a Bugatti (also no offense to Fiat Panda owners, it's a solid little car ).

You're not wrong. At times I've hated the A90 for being boring, at times I've loved it for delivering exactly what it needs to. It's also unfair on the A90 since it's a tiny fraction of the price.

As for tube rolling, I've spent way more on audio in the past 12 months than I realistically should have. I need to try and abstain otherwise I'll never financially recover!

 

[krude]

I plan on it! Very excited for the utopias because it's hard to imagine them sounding any better than they are


You're not wrong. At times I've hated the A90 for being boring, at times I've loved it for delivering exactly what it needs to. It's also unfair on the A90 since it's a tiny fraction of the price.

As for tube rolling, I've spent way more on audio in the past 12 months than I realistically should have. I need to try and abstain otherwise I'll never financially recover!

Yeah I tell myself that for the past 3 years ... oh well owning a totl tube amp you absolutely have to roll totl tubes. The difference will be as big as A90 to stock HA300MK2 ...

But give it around 200h first to fully burn in and then roll, I rolled prematurily and didn't know what is burned in, what is not and my experience was unnecessarily confusing.

 

[Roybenz]

Congratulations!! And I think your love and appreciation will grow in time.

I received mine in the middle of Sept and for me it really took another 3 weeks for all the tubes and capacitors and input & output transformers to burn in. It definitely sounded fantastic out of the box but sounded even better. More refined and more complete after a few weeks time. Enjoy. And please share your experience regarding the Utopia paring.

Did you leave it on 24-7 for burn in?

 

[RobertSM]

Did you leave it on 24-7 for burn in?

You can do that. I didn't do that exactly. I turned it on mid morning and tuned it off at 9-10pm the same day. Of course I'd make sure to play music though it. So I was getting a soild 11-13 hours of burn in a day. I did this for three weeks or so. Might have even been four weeks.

 

[Wes S]

You can do that. I didn't do that exactly. I turned it on mid morning and tuned it off at 9-10pm the same day. Of course I'd make sure to play music though it. So I was getting a soild 11-13 hours of burn in a day. I did this for three weeks or so. Might have even been four weeks.

That's how I did it too.

 

[jamato8]

You can do that. I didn't do that exactly. I turned it on mid morning and tuned it off at 9-10pm the same day. Of course I'd make sure to play music though it. So I was getting a soild 11-13 hours of burn in a day. I did this for three weeks or so. Might have even been four weeks.

I don't leave equipment totally unattended, tube. Sure when I am home, but when I leave it is turned off. This is tube equipment and if a tube blows, you don't want something burning out in the amp totally or even worse. In the military, our equipment was always on (tube equipment) but if we were not going to use it for a while, like when docked in port, it was shut down. Solid state, will will leave on, but there are few consequences of doing that vs. tube equipment, which runs at much higher voltages and I have seen catastrophic failure with tubes, though more in the power tubes.

 

[RobertSM]

For any Cayin HA-300B MK2 owners looking for an end-game 300B tube upgrade.

A very lightly used pair of Elrog ER300B-Mo for sale by a known and trusted Head-Fier.

https://www.head-fi.org/classifieds/elrog-er300b-mo-matched-pair-like-new.58748/

 

[RobertSM]

Curious, I'm just, beginning to think about a pair of speakers to pair with the MK2. I've done some back reading but I'm still asking.

What sort of sensitivity specs should I look for in a small pair of bookshelf speakers?

My goal is low level listening- mostly background but I'd like a little headroom for when the special track calls my name.

Also the speaker taps in the rear of the MK2 require a banana style plug? I don't think it's a spade connection but could be wrong.

Tkx

 

[Mattyjm]

Curious, I'm just, beginning to think about a pair of speakers to pair with the MK2. I've done some back reading but I'm still asking.

What sort of sensitivity specs should I look for in a small pair of bookshelf speakers?

My goal is low level listening- mostly background but I'd like a little headroom for when the special track calls my name.

Also the speaker taps in the rear of the MK2 require a banana style plug? I don't think it's a spade connection but could be wrong.

Tkx

(not related but) headphones.com does suggest the KEF LS50, JBL L100 & Klipsch Heresy with their LeeLoo amplifer which only has 3W on the 8ohm output. i would assume that with 8W we could probably run speakers with similar sensitivities as well

i mean, if the mk2 can drive susvara (83db/mW), im sure it could do speakers at that sensitivites as well

 

[krude]

Curious, I'm just, beginning to think about a pair of speakers to pair with the MK2. I've done some back reading but I'm still asking.

What sort of sensitivity specs should I look for in a small pair of bookshelf speakers?

My goal is low level listening- mostly background but I'd like a little headroom for when the special track calls my name.

Also the speaker taps in the rear of the MK2 require a banana style plug? I don't think it's a spade connection but could be wrong.

Tkx

Aim for around 95 db claimed efficiency. You can get away with around 90 db but your taking a bit of a gamble. With speakers real efficiency is around -3 db from what manufacturers claim.

@KrauserX91 has Klipsch bookshelfs, RP-600 MK2 maybe I can recommend Audio Note if you want to go TOTL with bigger budget. If you want great vintage speakers try Snell, these are the foundation Audio Note started from.

 

[RobertSM]

Aim for around 95 db claimed efficiency. You can get away with around 90 db but your taking a bit of a gamble. With speakers real efficiency is around -3 db from what manufacturers claim.

@KrauserX91 has Klipsch bookshelfs, RP-600 MK2 maybe I can recommend Audio Note if you want to go TOTL with bigger budget. If you want great vintage speakers try Snell, these are the foundation Audio Note started from.

Thank you. I'm still just sticking my toe in the water on this. I'd say I'm about a year out from a purchase. The Audio Note are interesting to me and not out of my range with proper planning. I also like some of the small bookshelf speakers from Focal. We'll see...

 

[Andykong]

Curious, I'm just, beginning to think about a pair of speakers to pair with the MK2. I've done some back reading but I'm still asking.

What sort of sensitivity specs should I look for in a small pair of bookshelf speakers?

My goal is low level listening- mostly background but I'd like a little headroom for when the special track calls my name.

Also the speaker taps in the rear of the MK2 require a banana style plug? I don't think it's a spade connection but could be wrong.

Tkx

I have shared some thoughts about using speakers with HA-300MK2, maybe THIS and THIS are relevant.

 

[dadracer2]

Curious, I'm just, beginning to think about a pair of speakers to pair with the MK2. I've done some back reading but I'm still asking.

What sort of sensitivity specs should I look for in a small pair of bookshelf speakers?

My goal is low level listening- mostly background but I'd like a little headroom for when the special track calls my name.

Also the speaker taps in the rear of the MK2 require a banana style plug? I don't think it's a spade connection but could be wrong.

Tkx

Hi mate,
If you really want to hear some dynamic music then you will need good floorstanding speakers of 95+ dB sensitivity in a medium sized room. On the other hand if you are determined to have small speakers and are not so worried about levels then a set of 15ohm LS3/5a should work well and what you gain in mid range splendour you will lose a bit in the bass with extension.

 

[Aeonyx]

Just got these Sylvania 22DE4 tubes I scored from eBay. Atrium is now completely silent with no audible noise. So if anyone is experiencing noise with dynamics, I solved with these tubes, and replacing the stock fuse with an SR Purple. The fuse lowered the noise considerably, but it's totally gone now even at 100% volume.

 

[idairyou]

Just got these Sylvania 22DE4 tubes I scored from eBay. Atrium is now completely silent with no audible noise. So if anyone is experiencing noise with dynamics, I solved with these tubes, and replacing the stock fuse with an SR Purple. The fuse lowered the noise considerably, but it's totally gone now even at 100% volume.

I'd be willing to bet good money that the folks you were bidding against were also owners of the HA-300 and the MKII.