[Bill Baker]

Here is the pair of custom Mundorf Silver/Oil & V-Cap Bella EXtreme 100 amplifiers that I have been working on for the showroom (for almost 6 months now  ). Additional features include Mundorf Silver/Oil coupling capacitors, V-Cap Teflon input coupling capacitor, Mundorf Silver/Gold internal wiring, Eichmann Cable Pods, Audio Note Silver RCA's and much more.

[richidoo]

Wow, Bill. They are gorgeous!  Somebody's gonna be verrrrrry happy with those!

[Bill Baker]

Thanks richidoo,
 The only person that's going to be enjoying these is myself and those who come in for auditions.  I custom built these for the showroom and they are not for sale. They have a few extra goodies inside that are not foud in any other consumer's piece.

[billc]

Hey Bill,

That Bella Extreme 100 really does look fantastic.  WOW!  A Christmas present to yourself, and you definitely deserve it! 

My Santa notes indicate you have been using way too many emoticons recently, so these amps, with your new speakers, ought to result in a  aa.  Or a double  aa aa  !

A very Merry Christmas to you and your family, from my gang here in NJ.   

I know our holiday will be enriched by the wonderful audio that you have made possible for me this year, in time for Christmas ! 

I hope to stop by soon, and wish you a Happy New Year in person.  Keep up the great work, and your commitment to the music.

Bill C

[Bill Baker]

Thank you Bill.

 I have only had time to work on these amps between customer's jobs so it took a while.

 By the way, I spoke with RP last night and he mentioned possibly coming up later in the week to pick up the Quicksilver amps. He was going to check with you and Bob and see if you were up for the trip. Will we be seeing you?

 If you do come up, the Bella 100's will not be running as I will have one of the pair of Quicksilvers running the Musica Bella SP/AV-2 speakers. Probably Bob's pair.

 If I don't see you, you and the family have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year

[carusoracer]

Audio Candy!  Very nice

[Bill Baker]

Thanks carusoracer. I am working on matching transformer covers but need more stock of the thinner wood as the 3/4" obviously won't work. I will be using a single cover for the two larger transformers and a smaller, separate cover for the choke (smaller cover in front of the larger pieces).

[poseidonsvoice]

Can you give us any idea what the Mundorf Silver/Gold wiring sounds like? I've been using VH Audio copper wire on the power supply and VH Audio silver for the circuitry for years. I'm wondering what the "gold" would bring into the mix.

Wish I lived closer to Endicott...


Anand.

[Bill Baker]

Hi Anand,
 I have used just about all the wiring that VH Audio has to offer. For some time I was using the Pulsar wiring as internal signal wire in the EXtreme Hurricanes.

 At this very moment, I have the Bella 100's burining in with "Live Free - Die Hard" and haven't even listened to any music through them yet. I will wait till I get a few hours on them before switching over to music.

 In this system, I have custom interconnects that are based on the VH-Audio 28 awg Silver/Cotton as well as some based on the Mundorf Silver/Gold with Teflon. I have yet to do any serious comparison listening as the Mundorf canles have only about 10 hours on them while I have been using the VH Silver cables for some time now.

 I am extremely pleasedwith the VH based cables. Being such a thinner gauge, the upper end sense of air and detail is uncanny.

 As a disclaimer, I run a LOT of VH Audio cables, including power cords in my showroom but I am not a reseller nor do we make and sell any interconnect cables based on his wire. I use it strickly for evaluation and referencing purposes as well as within many of our modifications upon request.

[Bill Baker]

 Good evening AC'ers. With the holidays, I only have about 25 hours on the Mundorf Silver/Oil Bella 100's and they still have a long way to go but I am truly enjoying what i'm hearing so far.

 While these are breaking in, I am considering starting another pair to add to the Custom Mundorf line-up. Mundorf has just released a new capacitor, the Silver/Gold/Oil. After spending time with the rest of their Supreme capacitors, I am eager to see what these bring to the table.

 I have two option with this procedure. 1) Build the Silver/Gold/Oil amplifiers and sell the Silver/Oil currently running or 2) Offer the Silver/Gold/Oil at a special price to someone who may be interested in these amps.

Obvioulsy I have no idea of how these are going to sound but I suspect they will have every bit of the honesty of the Silver/Gold with a hint more smoothness from the oil.

 Maybe I will throw these new caps into a Bella EXtreme 3205 first as it will take me a while to get to a new pair of 100's with my current work load.

 What I can tell you about the Mundorf capacitors is that they are extremely honest allowing every little nuance through. The Silver/Gold are the most articualte with teh Silver/Oil right behind them. he Silver/Oil do not sound like what you might expect from an 'oil' capacitor but are very smooth. Too bad they take forever to break in.

[yo2tup]

 In this system, I have custom interconnects that are based on the VH-Audio 28 awg Silver/Cotton as well as some based on the Mundorf Silver/Gold with Teflon. I have yet to do any serious comparison listening as the Mundorf canles have only about 10 hours on them while I have been using the VH Silver cables for some time now.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, when ever you get a chance to compare the two. 

[Bill Baker]

A quick update on the progress of burning in the Mundorf Bella 100's. Things have been a bit busy around the shop having to burn in some EXtreme Hurricanes and other amplifiers that have recently been finished. I now have only about 60 hours on the Mundorf 100's but recently added a new piece into the mix.

 I have finally finished my Audio Note Custom L3 Deluxe linestage. This piece uses the Hi-B Double C-Core output transformers, dual mono DACT attenuators, AN Tantalum resistors, full Mundorf/V-Cap power supply with Platinum Bypass and V-Cap coupling. The face plate is a custom Bubinga piece I made as I did not have a face plate on hand for the dual volume controls. I think I'll keep it on. Sorry about the picture quality but the L3 can be seen in the picture below.

 I still need to finish up a few more front end pieces for this system with the AN Custom DAC and a transport coming next.

 I have a few more pair of EXtreme Hurricanes and Bella 100's on the benches now but as soon as they are done, system tested and shipped, I will get back to dedicating more run time on the system.

 At that time, I will also post information on the gettogether I mentioned previously for this system with the CLS-9 and OB-7 speakers. I know a lot of you want to here these.

The system below is one of three used for burning in customers' amplifiers as well as my gear. At the time of this writing, I have the Extreme Hurricanes mentioned above in place of the Bella 100's. Pretty soon, it will not be used for burning in customer's pieces with those duties going to the other two systems.