[FYFL]

Tuff gong music is repressing entire Bob Marley catalog. Pressed in new pressing plant in Jamaica. If anyone is interested.
I don’t know if it’s an AAA or digital transfer mastering tho… I doubt B. Marley estate owns any masters so, maybe from a digital file?

 

[]eep]

I wouldn't trust the master tapes from Jamaica early 70-ies to be audiophile quality. Original, yes. Worth saving? Absolutely. I expect any ganja smoking junkie to want to revere any Bob Marley recording so any other mastering engineer would surely give it his best. Unfortunately the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And weed doesn't help much there.

We'll see.

 

[UntilThen]

Should try Cocaine from the Slow Hand album.

 

[FYFL]

I wouldn't trust the master tapes from Jamaica early 70-ies to be audiophile quality. Original, yes. Worth saving? Absolutely. I expect any ganja smoking junkie to want to revere any Bob Marley recording so any other mastering engineer would surely give it his best. Unfortunately the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And weed doesn't help much there.

We'll see.

So music and narcotics do not mix huh?
Lol
That's going to be extremely tough to defend.

 

[]eep]

Erm...
That's not what I said. Don't forget I used to do PA... As an engineer you need to be very alert. Musicians, not so much. Pfff. How often I clashed with musicians because of something stupid they didn't think of and just blamed me. In front of the whole audience
"engineer, I can't hear my guitar!" (all heads turning to me in derision)
- Did you put in a new battery? (semi acoustic guitar that I wasn't allowed to touch)
"uhhhh. Noooo"

For the music it's helpful, up to a certain level. Man heard Stan Getz music where he's as high as a kite. He was not just off key but on another planet. And they called it 'desaffinado'. Yeah right. Junkie.

 

[Strayngs]

I have a pretty high end phono preamp (Acoustic Signature Tango Reference) available at a really good price if any one is interested.

 

[]eep]

I have a pretty high end phono preamp (Acoustic Signature Tango Reference) available at a really good price if any one is interested.

'pretty high end'?

You forgot to mention 'local pickup due to high weight'

Should be increasing in price in the very near future due to the situation in Germany now (ie not a good point in time to be selling this). A piece of top notch Teutonic engineering.

 

[FYFL]

Erm...
That's not what I said. Don't forget I used to do PA... As an engineer you need to be very alert. Musicians, not so much. Pfff. How often I clashed with musicians because of something stupid they didn't think of and just blamed me. In front of the whole audience
"engineer, I can't hear my guitar!" (all heads turning to me in derision)
- Did you put in a new battery? (semi acoustic guitar that I wasn't allowed to touch)
"uhhhh. Noooo"

For the music it's helpful, up to a certain level. Man heard Stan Getz music where he's as high as a kite. He was not just off key but on another planet. And they called it 'desaffinado'. Yeah right. Junkie.

From what I've read, back in the days, even engineers were stoned working 16hr rotations.

 

[FYFL]

I have a pretty high end phono preamp (Acoustic Signature Tango Reference) available at a really good price if any one is interested.

Great phono. If I had extra $ I would happily get that of your hands.

 

[Strayngs]

'pretty high end'?

You forgot to mention 'local pickup due to high weight'

Should be increasing in price in the very near future due to the situation in Germany now (ie not a good point in time to be selling this). A piece of top notch Teutonic engineering.

You make some good points. It is outstanding. I should probably just hold on to it

 

[The Jester]

From what I've read, back in the days, even engineers were stoned working 16hr rotations.

The old comment ?
“If you can remember the 60’s you weren’t really there “ …

 

[]eep]

In times of crisis buy gold and silver. And you got solid metal there... Aluminium is going to skyrocket in Germany due to 5-fold energy prices. Aluminum takes a lot of heat to process.

Your paper dollars depreciate with double figures in a year... I'm not a 'prepper' as the word is used as a smear, but being smart also means thinking ahead. Contingency plans. Hedging. Enjoy life knowing you've got your bases covered.

 

[]eep]

In advance to finally going planar, and since I only really have low power tubeamps and other not very powerful amps that don't go much over 40W I was looking for other candidates. I can't buy Magnepans and powerful endgame amps at once. It's like that riddle with the goat, the cabbage and the wolf in the little boat across the river. So I need a goat to try the wolf. Er... an amp to feed the power hungry Magnepans.

I also do not want a power hungry class A beast. And I have good experiences with class T and D amps. Especially the old Tripath 20xx. The new Infineon Merus are also good only they are often paired with inferior ancillaries (preamp chips and electrolytics). I have modified the SMSL A8s, delegated to my bedroom system. Nice, but not enough for my main system. It's very clear, fast, neutral without the harshness. It's also wide, but has no depth.

Recently I saw a review by Iwii reviews (Srboljub Stojanovitch) of the newest smsl A300 and he was full of praise. But it's a €180 amp. So the newer version of my A8s. But it's a lot more powerful and it has 3 specific extras: a sub out, a high pass filter for combining with small speakers and it is bridgable for a whopping 330W @4Ohms. You need 2 amps for that. Still only €360 for a LOT of power. Have they solved that 'flat' sound is my worry. It's awesome for $200 but is it adequate for a high end system? I doubt it.

I have been ogling another SMSL amp that fits with my pre/HP amp and Digital Player. The SA400 with ST-Microelectronics chips, foundry for the old Tripath chips. It has 120W@8 and 220W @4 Ohms in a single small package. It can get hot but it's very efficient. However...
Here comes the analog vinyl part... And why I held off buying it... It cuts of at 20kHz and its pure digital. It converts my beautiful vinyl analog sound to digital... And I couldn't correlate the reviews. I didn't know how to interpret them. They all said "it sounds great and it has loads of power, very load in dependant, but it's really expensive for a cheap Chinese SMSL digital amp". Oh, and what about: "it uses an old type StMicro chip, newer chips are much better". Yeah, typical ASR type remark. That infineon could not match my old 20W Tripath 2021 in sound.

So I took the plunge. To h3ll with sh!tty reviews. There is only one thing I can trust and that's my own hearing. I love my SP400 and if the SA400 sounds half as good I'm happy. If there is one thing I have learned over the years is not to be dogmatic. I've seen big companies do that and where it leads.

And if the tradeoff digital<>high power weighs up to closed dynamic <> magnetostatic I can hold out till I have enough for the real deal.

I already have my heart set on 2 options: the Billie amp from Heaven 11 (even has a good phono) or the Nuprime AMG pre/power. Both powerful class D with a class A preamp.
This video of the Billie amp ticked a lot of boxes. Price, power, sound , design, phono (for my 3rd arm), pre-out and low power use yet with tube flavor.

 

[]eep]

That was true next day delivery! I decided not to order from shenzenaudio or Hifi-express or audiophonics.fr. The last has the best price but err... France. In case of any problems that won't help. And added postage. I decided to buy local for only €10 more. Turns out it's the same shop that I bought speakerparts from. Seems they expanded their business.

So, what did I get? Half the size, triple the power (also at double the price)

As you can see it matches the other gear below. That CD player is moving out anyway, I'll be using the ripper. That saves an extra spot. I love the remote. It's different from the SP400 and DP5 and it works very well. Versatility is great. I can control the subwoofer level from my couch... If only... The display font for the menu weren't do idiotically tiny. I can read it without glasses if I come close. Missed opportunity there. However... There is plenty to tune the sound with without penalty like old-fashioned bass and treble controls. The mysterious 'Tabebua' equaliser position is for their own small bookshelf speaker (with the awesome Wavecor units!) and makes my speakers sound great too.

So why I bought this amp? For the power. Man, I didn't dare go over 40. It has a lot more power than I ever had. And that was in the 'low' setting. My tiny speakers have only 2 3" drivers rated at 25W. But other than that it feels like

I'm ot saying that it is, but it has plenty.

One of the negatives that were mentioned in reviews were heat so that the fan starts up. Yes, well, I didn't get it over 45° C. And yes, the fan kicks in. But you'll only hear it when the music stops. Another thing was slight hiss. Well, I had to put my ear to the driver to hear an ever so slight midrange brown noise.

So how does it sound?
Well, that is one question that none of the reviews really answered. With the caveat that I played it without any burn in (and I suspect it hardly needs any). It has a lot more headroom on top, but it loses micro dynamics and details at the bottom. It is the best small Chinese class D I ever heard. But I miss the ultimate air, sense of space and tiny details that I know are there in 2 reference songs.

In 'Praya deserta' by Morelenbaum² & Sakamoto's 'Casa' I could not hear the birds outside the studio. And at the end of Melody Gardot's Lisboa the streetsounds were very faint. I think, I hope this is (again) to blame on input caps. They are better than most but miss the clarity of audiophile quality caps.

So, in my opinion: good but not high end.

And how does it make vinyl sound?
Unfortunately, in this configuration, it's like going back from a high end MC via my silver transformers to a decent solid state MC input. That's a big step back. Or from dsd back to CD quality. Some people say CD is the best possible quality... If you never heard better you may think that. It impacts vinyl more than digital.

Did I waste my money? Hmm. I don't know. I need to take a peek inside.

Does it make me happy? No. But when you live in California you never talk about the weather. I do realise how blessed I am with that other small translinear current mode amp that only cost me €300. It is so hard to beat.


All those reviewers say: "well if I compare it to my €3000 amp, it lacks a bit of this and that. But you can't compare because it's 5 times cheaper". Yes? So what? Just compare it in absolute terms. Come on, my little €300 giant slayer against your goliath. Bring it on!

In Dutch we call that 'the law of handicap by headstart' or 'the dialectics of progress'. Once you have a big head start it gets harder and harder to progress.


Edit:

I can't get it open. I didn't study butchery. I got the rubber feet off hiding the screws. But with all screws out it still wouldn't fall out. I don't want to go damaging it with screwdriver prying. Oh well.

What I thought off later... The lack of low level detail might be due to a digital volume... So with low sensitivity speakers it might improve. I hope.

Edit2:
I'm partly right on the volume. When I turn up the volume to 80=full and let the SP400 control the volume (resistor relay ladder) I can hear the birds better. So just use it as a power amplifier... With tone control

I still need to get a rca to 2rca subwoofer cable. This amp has a (controllable) sub out (only mono I need 2 plugs for left and right. Sub 100Hz is mono anyway so that's no problem).

 

[Strayngs]

Here is my setup. Just upgraded the preamp and got another rack to clean things up a bit.