First things first, I am not big on writing lengthy reviews but will happily answer any questions. I bought this unit about a month ago to replace a Transcendent Sound Masterpiece with EML 300B mesh tubes. I also used a pair of NOS 12AU7’s in that deck.
I bought the stock unit and it took about 10 days to get here from China. The actual shipping was quick, the manufacturer was a little backed up on getting the unit out.
The unit itself is very utilitarian in its appearance and it ships with crap tubes. I already had a trio of Sovtek 6H30’s that I planned to start with as well as a new production Tung Sol 5AR4. The unit ships with decent capacitors, but is designed for the user to mix and match based on his / her own choice.
This is where the adventure began with me since I have never done much with swapping capacitors and learned quite a lot of info from
http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Cap.html.
I bought some Jantzen silver caps in the output position and moved the original output caps the filter side. I let that run for about 2 weeks and just did not like the sound.
I bought some Clarity CMR caps and tried those in both positions as well and while better, still was pushing too much from the high frequencies.
I also swapped 2 of the 3 tubes for NOS WE 5670’s from the 50’s with a 6922 adapter (Tube Depot just got an excellent shipment of these BTW). I thought these might warm up the sound since I am familiar with this tube still is was not where I wanted it.
So, on a whim, I bought a pair of Jantzen Superior caps at 4.7 uF for my coupling caps and a pair of Obliggato Premiums at 10 uF for the power side. I also went back to the 6H30 tubes since this is most linear tube that I own and I wanted to hear as much of the capacitor impact as possible.
Almost out of the box, I heard the sound that I wanted. Deep soundstage, plenty of bass when needed, but a bit of airy ness in recordings that could really benefit from that factor. I say that because I was listening to the remastered Delicate Sound of Thunder from Pink Floyd at 24/88 FLAC, the recording is so dynamic that it was hard to notice. Really benefited a lot with female vocals and all of that jazz that I have put thru it so far.
The Transcendent unit had a heaviness to it, probably bc of the 300B’s but I wanted to try them and was not going to got into SE tube amps.
My pre prior to that was the Manley Jumbo Shrimp which was a great pre amp. To my ears, Manley has a certain sound (I owned a pair of their Snappers as well) that is great for rock, but missed the boat for the other music categories that I enjoy.
So far I would say that this definitely the most interesting piece that I have owned and I am very happy with the sound. All in with the tube and caps that I described above, it is still less than 1k.
More information can be found at the manufacturer’s web site, but the tube and capacitor combinations are infinite. I will also say that the Obliggatos that I bought have held zero tolerance since I purchased them as I check them with my meter. The Jantzens only have a small voltage deviation, but no huge swings in tolerance. Hope this helps if anyone may be considering this purchase. This buy definitively has me interested in his DAC.
For reference, my system is the Musical Paradise pre: MHDT Orchid fed my PC for digital; VPI Classic 2 with a Soundsmith Voice cartridge > Lehmann Audio phono pre; into a Despeaker 2.0 up to 500 Hz with a pair of Wyred 4 Sound mAmps into my woofers and a pair of Primaluna Dialogue 7 into the upper module. Speakers are VSA 4jr’s with Albert’s Gen IV upgrade. I have a couple of diffusors behind my listening position and sound absorbors on the wall behind my stereo.
