Akathriel
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2005
- Posts
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Disclaimer:Some of you may have noticed that I made some editions. These were subtractive only in regards to the wishes and privacy of the manufacturer. Other than being a satisfied costumer, I have no affiliation with singlepower audio and the words written here are exclusively my own impressions blah, blah...
I go out to Denver several times a year to visit extended family, and decided to take a trip out to Aurora and visit Singlepower yesterday. I was mainly pretty excited to go hear my amp which is basically done after more than 4 months but I haven't completely paid off as I opted to make some more upgrades a couple weeks ago to make it really special (Voltage Regulators that cost significantly more than HD650s
). I unfortunately didnt take any pictures because my cousin forgot his camera so Ill try to be descriptive.
Facilities:
1750 Chambers Road Suite B is an inconspicuous complex in the middle of the strip mall on the major highway in Aurora. Aurora itself is halfway between a suburb of Denver and a town in itself about 20 minutes outside the city.
Straight back from the entrance is a large warehouse where all the real work is obviously done. There are shelves holding parts around ALL the walls of the facilities ranging from chasses, capacitors, wire, etc... On the left side of the room there are 3-5 15 foot long and 10 foot high shelves perpendicular to the wall spaced about 6-8 feet apart from each other. The nearest one is covered with a large cardboard boxes labeled 5687 or 6sn7gt or 6080 in sharpie marker. The boxes are filled with tubes of all brands, ages, and gains of that type. The second shelf is filled with literally more than 1 ton (maybe 2) of boxed transformers. Toroids, C-core, etc etc. There was LOTS. Beyond the first two sets of shelves I didn't get to see.
Between the shelves there are narrow work benches made out of plywood (also perpendicular to the wall and about the same length) There is only a couple feet between the work benches and the shelves. Along the workbenches are several Singlepower amps laying on their sides to reduce their footprints (all but the largest mostly MPX3 and PPX3 size but one supra I saw) most with their bottom's off all plugged in to burn in (but no audio running through them and no load). Each amp has a handwritten tag attached to its volume pot that states the model, upgrades, and owner of the amp. The work benches have homemade hutches made of two by fours with nails banged halfway into them. On the nails hang almost any headphone you could think of between 200 and 2000 dollars. On top of the hutch sat sources. The only two I remember being a Meridian 508 and Arcam CD72.
Behind the 5 shelves is a massive CNC machine probably about the size of my bedroom. It looks at least 15 years old but obviously in regular use and good condition. On the opposing wall is an equally massive dry erase board with a charted schedule for the whole week. In front of the dry erase board, in the middle of the room (parallel to the wall), are two or three spacious work desks with engineers working at them. (While I was there there were two other employees other than Mikhail and J) Background Music is boomed from an ipod line out through singlepower preamplification ( and maybe power amplification) to hidden speakers. At the time I believe the choice of Music was a Savage Garden album from the late 90s. Could be wrong though.
According to Mikhail, there is a warehouse nearby, much larger than this facility, filled exclusive with tubes lol. And this place is not really small.
Listening (Bragging Section)
I spent almost all my time listening to my amp which is a balls to the wall balanced extreme with two Plitron toroids, black gates everywhevere, V-CAP quad regulators, quad gang stepped attenuator, etc, etc..... I've now poored about 4k into it and that was WITH introductory pricing. It is the first true extreme xlr. At the time I was listening it had Bendix 6080s driven by 6sn7gtas (I forget what brand) I'll reserve my comments to more critical listening (and because no one cares lol) to saying that it sounded very refined with a HUGE soundstage. Comments I've read on here have stated that the extremes are not as refined as the mini tube amps but I did not get that impression. I'd probably have do more critical listening and it could also have something to do with the fact that my amp is significantly upgraded over an extreme platinum. It drove everything we threw at it with equal finesse including HD650s, PF-1s, RS-1s, K1000 and Qualia 010's. I kind of regretted selling the K1000s after listening to it but the Qualias were equally as special, just a different flavor. I consider both of them to be different executions on the same concept:to create a highly detailed headphone with excellent imaging and speaker like soundstage and they make different tradeoffs in different areas to achieve this goal. The GS-1000 I feel also has the same concept but performs much like the Qualia (with similar strengths and weaknesses) at a much poorer level imo. Sorry, Enough OT.
___________________________Extreme XLR #001 (This is the first of more to come)____________________________
The Future of Singlepower:
I'm going to choose my words carefully here because I have not talked with Mikhail about what's ok to/not to post so I apologize if my comments are somewhat cryptic.
First of all Singlepower Solid State is the real deal. There are plans for solid state amps at quite a few price points including 2 hopefully at/below the entry level PPX3 now. After hearing Singlepower solidstates in several forms I feel I've really gotten to hear the evolution of these amps. When I first heard Juan's solid state a year ago I loved it. It was very warm, more tubey then some tube amps, with punchy bass and sweet (if not the most extended) highs.
The amps I heard yesterday are very different from the one I heard before but overall I think an improvement. They sounded more like good SS (rather than a wannabe tube amp) and toned back the midrange density (although it still has a very full sound) and places more emphasis on the highs for a very nice sound. The first thing that impressed me was the razor sharp transients (an advantage SS has over valves) and the big soundstage. The glaring weakness of Juan's amp was its Grado-ish soundstage but the refined design is close to extreme big, I'd probably compare it more to the 6bl7 output amps: not quite as big as the extreme, but maybe more refined. Overall I was very impressed. Its clear that Mikhail is targeting a different market with the sub1000 dollar amp than his tube amps with some very, very handy additional features which I wont divulge.
We also got to see a singlepower power amp which had the biggest tubes I've ever seen (other than that one in the pic that Hirsch took of Mikhail at RMAF). When I asked Mikhail how much it put out he said about 300 watts. I said, "so its push pull then right?" And he said no, its SET (yes you read that correctly). 300 watts in output transformerless single ended triode goodness...
My cousin sam asked what kind of applications the tube had and Mikhail responded that they were NOS tubes from the 1940's used for radar apparatti on ships. I have no idea how far away this thing is, how much will it cost, how it sounds, or even if it will make it to market. But the fact that its 300 watts in SET stuns me...
Conclusion:
Thats all I've got to say hehe. It was a very cool experience that I thoroughly enjoyed. Singlepower is one of the few companies in this hobby that is pushing the hobby to its limits. Even if you cannot afford a 14k amp, I witnessed yesterday with my own ears how the techniques used in the SS-1 "trickled down" into the lower end solid state amps; and I think that is something all of us can be happy about. It seems that Mikhail has at least 4 prototypes in the works at all times and more stewing around in his head. In addition to that, you have people like sacdlover and sleestack whose ideas Mikhail bends over backwards to put into practice. Even if you don't care for singlepower amps, you must concede that the company is raising the bar that your favorite competitor is striving to meet.
PS Happy birthday Mikhail.
Sorry for long-windedness and poor typing.
I go out to Denver several times a year to visit extended family, and decided to take a trip out to Aurora and visit Singlepower yesterday. I was mainly pretty excited to go hear my amp which is basically done after more than 4 months but I haven't completely paid off as I opted to make some more upgrades a couple weeks ago to make it really special (Voltage Regulators that cost significantly more than HD650s
Facilities:
1750 Chambers Road Suite B is an inconspicuous complex in the middle of the strip mall on the major highway in Aurora. Aurora itself is halfway between a suburb of Denver and a town in itself about 20 minutes outside the city.
Straight back from the entrance is a large warehouse where all the real work is obviously done. There are shelves holding parts around ALL the walls of the facilities ranging from chasses, capacitors, wire, etc... On the left side of the room there are 3-5 15 foot long and 10 foot high shelves perpendicular to the wall spaced about 6-8 feet apart from each other. The nearest one is covered with a large cardboard boxes labeled 5687 or 6sn7gt or 6080 in sharpie marker. The boxes are filled with tubes of all brands, ages, and gains of that type. The second shelf is filled with literally more than 1 ton (maybe 2) of boxed transformers. Toroids, C-core, etc etc. There was LOTS. Beyond the first two sets of shelves I didn't get to see.
Between the shelves there are narrow work benches made out of plywood (also perpendicular to the wall and about the same length) There is only a couple feet between the work benches and the shelves. Along the workbenches are several Singlepower amps laying on their sides to reduce their footprints (all but the largest mostly MPX3 and PPX3 size but one supra I saw) most with their bottom's off all plugged in to burn in (but no audio running through them and no load). Each amp has a handwritten tag attached to its volume pot that states the model, upgrades, and owner of the amp. The work benches have homemade hutches made of two by fours with nails banged halfway into them. On the nails hang almost any headphone you could think of between 200 and 2000 dollars. On top of the hutch sat sources. The only two I remember being a Meridian 508 and Arcam CD72.
Behind the 5 shelves is a massive CNC machine probably about the size of my bedroom. It looks at least 15 years old but obviously in regular use and good condition. On the opposing wall is an equally massive dry erase board with a charted schedule for the whole week. In front of the dry erase board, in the middle of the room (parallel to the wall), are two or three spacious work desks with engineers working at them. (While I was there there were two other employees other than Mikhail and J) Background Music is boomed from an ipod line out through singlepower preamplification ( and maybe power amplification) to hidden speakers. At the time I believe the choice of Music was a Savage Garden album from the late 90s. Could be wrong though.
According to Mikhail, there is a warehouse nearby, much larger than this facility, filled exclusive with tubes lol. And this place is not really small.
Listening (Bragging Section)
I spent almost all my time listening to my amp which is a balls to the wall balanced extreme with two Plitron toroids, black gates everywhevere, V-CAP quad regulators, quad gang stepped attenuator, etc, etc..... I've now poored about 4k into it and that was WITH introductory pricing. It is the first true extreme xlr. At the time I was listening it had Bendix 6080s driven by 6sn7gtas (I forget what brand) I'll reserve my comments to more critical listening (and because no one cares lol) to saying that it sounded very refined with a HUGE soundstage. Comments I've read on here have stated that the extremes are not as refined as the mini tube amps but I did not get that impression. I'd probably have do more critical listening and it could also have something to do with the fact that my amp is significantly upgraded over an extreme platinum. It drove everything we threw at it with equal finesse including HD650s, PF-1s, RS-1s, K1000 and Qualia 010's. I kind of regretted selling the K1000s after listening to it but the Qualias were equally as special, just a different flavor. I consider both of them to be different executions on the same concept:to create a highly detailed headphone with excellent imaging and speaker like soundstage and they make different tradeoffs in different areas to achieve this goal. The GS-1000 I feel also has the same concept but performs much like the Qualia (with similar strengths and weaknesses) at a much poorer level imo. Sorry, Enough OT.
___________________________Extreme XLR #001 (This is the first of more to come)____________________________
The Future of Singlepower:
I'm going to choose my words carefully here because I have not talked with Mikhail about what's ok to/not to post so I apologize if my comments are somewhat cryptic.
First of all Singlepower Solid State is the real deal. There are plans for solid state amps at quite a few price points including 2 hopefully at/below the entry level PPX3 now. After hearing Singlepower solidstates in several forms I feel I've really gotten to hear the evolution of these amps. When I first heard Juan's solid state a year ago I loved it. It was very warm, more tubey then some tube amps, with punchy bass and sweet (if not the most extended) highs.
The amps I heard yesterday are very different from the one I heard before but overall I think an improvement. They sounded more like good SS (rather than a wannabe tube amp) and toned back the midrange density (although it still has a very full sound) and places more emphasis on the highs for a very nice sound. The first thing that impressed me was the razor sharp transients (an advantage SS has over valves) and the big soundstage. The glaring weakness of Juan's amp was its Grado-ish soundstage but the refined design is close to extreme big, I'd probably compare it more to the 6bl7 output amps: not quite as big as the extreme, but maybe more refined. Overall I was very impressed. Its clear that Mikhail is targeting a different market with the sub1000 dollar amp than his tube amps with some very, very handy additional features which I wont divulge.
We also got to see a singlepower power amp which had the biggest tubes I've ever seen (other than that one in the pic that Hirsch took of Mikhail at RMAF). When I asked Mikhail how much it put out he said about 300 watts. I said, "so its push pull then right?" And he said no, its SET (yes you read that correctly). 300 watts in output transformerless single ended triode goodness...
My cousin sam asked what kind of applications the tube had and Mikhail responded that they were NOS tubes from the 1940's used for radar apparatti on ships. I have no idea how far away this thing is, how much will it cost, how it sounds, or even if it will make it to market. But the fact that its 300 watts in SET stuns me...
Conclusion:
Thats all I've got to say hehe. It was a very cool experience that I thoroughly enjoyed. Singlepower is one of the few companies in this hobby that is pushing the hobby to its limits. Even if you cannot afford a 14k amp, I witnessed yesterday with my own ears how the techniques used in the SS-1 "trickled down" into the lower end solid state amps; and I think that is something all of us can be happy about. It seems that Mikhail has at least 4 prototypes in the works at all times and more stewing around in his head. In addition to that, you have people like sacdlover and sleestack whose ideas Mikhail bends over backwards to put into practice. Even if you don't care for singlepower amps, you must concede that the company is raising the bar that your favorite competitor is striving to meet.
PS Happy birthday Mikhail.
Sorry for long-windedness and poor typing.
