Yesterday's valves and vinyl bake off

hi,
first of all a big thanks to chris (bottleneck) who hosted the event, plied us with pizza, drinks and snacks and provided the musical base for our experimentations.
the list of equipment was vast so please excuse me if is miss anything....
power amps...
wad 300b
wad integrated (small)
wad integrated (large-er)
audion monoblocks.
a lage black box dean brought which i don;t know the name of.
spangly gold audions.
border patrol
chris's own (sorry i can;t remember the name of it)

pre's
chris's pre - not sure of the name again
lee's pre - not sure of the name again here

sources.
mitchel tt
zanash's heavily modified dennon and chris's micromega with :
mf x24 dac / external. psu
chord dac 64
cow ? valve dac
small silver box of a dac who's name i can;t remember (sorry)
zanash's magic box that goes between dac and transport.

speakers
living voice avatars.

unfortunately, as you can probably tell i didn't take copious notes on hardware however as a naimy i could defininately live with the sound that some of these combinations gave. perhaps the biggest surprise was how well the little 280 quid wad integrated handled some infected mushroom, bass got a little wooly sometimes when it ran out of puff, compared to my kit but i was very impressed with the way it kept up elsewhere, if i was any good with a soldering iron i'd be very tempted there. other highlights were deans 9 watt bp amp which i definately could have lived with, given high sensitivity speakers and chris's own amp which for me sounded the most like what i'm used to!

source wise, again i've come to the conclusion that cd and viny are different but neither is actually 'better' than the other, they have thir strengths and weaknesses but i couldn;t say there was a crushing victory either way. the tt had it's platter swapped early on in the day but from what little i heard i think i preferred the original to the new one (however this was after about 2 tracks so i'm going to reserve judgement here).

even though this was a valves and vinyl jobbie, the fact that we had 4 dacs and some trick bits meant that a comparison had to be done. on the day for me the chord again just edged it with, i felt, better cohesion across the frequency range. i also preferred the sound without the widget between the transport and dac, this seemed to really clarify the mid and top but softened the bass so it may be a worthwhile trade for some, but i felt the chords mid and top were good enough without. the valve dac was surprisingly close to the chord and i would really just say different, not better or worse, i prefered the presentation of the chord however the cow(?) was also something that i could have happily lived with. the x-24 and mods was also a very good dac and punched far above its weight comming close to the chord but for my money it was a little too smooth and inoffensive (a good thing for some) for me.

at this point zanash had to leave so after a few fitful goes with the cd players it went back to vinyl.

my list of 'must have' music has grown to include....
archie shep - daydream
scritti politti - songs to remember
dizrythmia
asa chang and junray
pickin on pink floys - a bluegrass tribute (hilarious)
senior coconut - samba style kraftwerk (another one to make you smile)
yellow magic - theme from the invaders
natalie merchant - ?
louis winsberg - jaleo
stylo phonic - man music technology
saint saens - organ symphony #3
niacin
and thanks lee for the OSI.

i was really good to see again / put faces to names to chris, lee, sideshowbob, dean, henry, grahamn, zanash, badchamp, themadhippy - don;t think i missed anyone.

thanks again chris for a really good time.
cheers

julian

 

THanks again to everyone who came. Its you lot that made the day a success.

Here's my thoughts on the products tried, look forward to hearing other peoples takes on it all too!! (nb Ive got a list of all music played, which I'll post later)

AMPS:

Kel84 (WAD)



A little integrated - and the biggest suprise of the day for me. £280, and it sounded like youd expect £800-£1000 to sound. So much better than a Richer Sounds/Superfi priced equivelant gets my unequivical support for that money.

Eddison pwr amp (Deans)

Bought on Ebay for under £200 - shows what you can get if you know what youre looking for (as Dean obviously does!) More punch than the Kel, but lost a little in the clarity stakes I felt. A bargain if you can find one!

300b push pull monoblocks (WAD)



WADs new amp - hasnt been launched yet, will be reviewed in the next issue of hifi world apparently.
I really liked it. Under £1200, a price jump from the others - but you are getting 300b monoblocks.
£1200 would get you a second hand pair of audions, a Lectron like mine (if you can find one) or an early border patrol amp. So, for a new priced item I cant think of anything close, but second hand I think you can beat it. Still, sounded really good to me.


Audion silver nights 300b single ended (I think) (Jeffs (badchamp)



Very nice looking and sounding monoblocks. Widely available used for £1000-£1300. One of my favorites at what they do - which is provude I think a clean clear sound, and allow to be directly driven because of the inbuilt volume control bypassed on this pair - presumably because they are used with a pre. Very nice.

Border Patrol Single Ended




What can you say about this amp?
First, it makes a mockery of judging an amps power rating by looking at the watts. At just 9w p/ch it punched more like 30w or more. Very clear (crystal clear) sound, and punchy dynamic and lightening fast. If I had to criticize, perhaps a little lean with some music types... but you cant have it all! A cracking amp. mmmm nice

Lectron JH50 (mine) 50w push pull (JH60 shown)



I had it on the wrong input (D'oh!!!) so it wasnt as punchy/powerful as normal. Not as transparent as some of the other amps on, but a bit more beefy sounding. A more classic sort of valvey sound. I likes it anyway


Other Products (no more photos - Dean had his digi camera anyhow)

Living Voice Avatar
Gyro/Orbe with helius arm kontrapunkt cart
EAR 834p
C/Johnson Premier 6 MC nubvistor stepdown (hummed getting faulty, and then blew up! )
Micromega T-DAC T-DRIVE
Denon CDP with MF X dac
Cal Sigma II dac (not cow hehehe )
Chord Dac 64
Art Audio pre (I think)

hundreds of bits and pieces (power things, cabley things, trasformers all sorts) which I'll be relying on others to fill in

NB
Thanks to hippy for bringing a box of valves for everyone - most generous
Thanks also to Lee for moving my 834p six inches back on the rack and removing the hum! (?!?!?!?!?) gotta be the best free tweak of the day.

Thanks again for all the effort people put in.

Chris

 

Many thanks to Chris. Julian's given a pretty good summary.

The WAD integrated was the KEL 84 (I know this, because I've been failing to get around to finishing building one for the past year). Pretty good it was too. Dean brought an Edison kit amp which also seemed to go down well. Missed the Audions (eating pizza). Dean's Border Patrol won, but it was obvious from the beginning that it would.

All the power amps did a decent job driving Chris's efficient Living Voices. The baby WAD struggled a bit when asked to play at silly volumes, but generally the WAD and Edison gear showed how good kit amps can be. The WAD 300b monoblocs are pretty serious amps.

The major A/B comparisons were done with dacs: Zanash's X24, Dean's DAC 64, Lee's California Audio Labs tube dac. I thought Lee's DAC just edged the much more expensive Chord, but there wasn't much in it (sorry Dean). Zanash is clearly unable to see a piece of equipment without modifying it, and I lost track of the vast array of gizmos he brought.

Much music was played and nobody jeered when I got near the record deck. I managed to sneak in:

- Archie Shepp "Caravan" (from Day Dream)

- Johnny Cash "San Quentin" and "A Boy Named Sue" (from At San Quentin)

- Fred Wesley and the JB's "Blow Your Head" (from Urban Classics, a late-80s rare groove compilation)

- Asa-Chang and Junray "Tsuginepu to Ittemita" (12" single, sadly didn't get to listen to this all the way through, but it's great when it gets going)

- Max Romeo and the Upsetters "War Inna Babylon" (from same-titled album)

- Senor Coconut "Showroom Dummies" (El Baile Aleman, samba versions of Kraftwerk tunes)

- Rahsaan Roland Kirk "Old Rugged Cross" (Blacknuss)

- Thelonius Monk, "Pannonica" (from Monk)

- Miles Davis "Straight No Chaser" (from Milestones)

- Coltrane "Alabama" (Live At Birdland)

An enjoyable day, good to meet everyone again, and to meet zanash and badchamp for the first time. Thanks for the hospitality Chris, and apologies for breaking your C-J...

-- Ian

 

Congrats on a good guy's, sounds like you enjoyed yourselves , Intresting Ian, you preferred the Lee's tube dac (which I like too) over the Dac 64, all personal I guess, did you get to listen to the 861? Tone

 

Wow.......thought I'd get up early and post on the events of yesterday. Well not early enough, you guy's must have been up all night writing the stuff.

My thanks go to Bottleneck for the hospitality, and provided me with the oppertunity to listen to some fantastic tube amps.

In no particular order....

The border patrol was head and shoulders above everything else....I liked the WAD gear but wish the 300b was in set mode rather than push pull.

Thanks to Dean who brought his chord 64 dac, to which was connected my £25 s/h Denon ....It was supprising how well it sounded.

Another thought was that most of the time the Cd was hooked to the preamps using the zero cost IC's
which didn't disgrace its self.
I'd taken the all 4n silver IC's but to add another layer of change seemed silly.

Music wise... well some was excellent and some....well it didn't float my boat. But thats one of the raesons to attend ....to hear music Genre that you would never otherwise hear.

Now bottleneck are we going to get new platters for our Gyro's or not ! I'm certainly up for it maybe !


I really wish I'd been able to stay longer....and nearly managed to escape with a disc in my CDP.

Thanks again to everyone for a really good day

 

As everyone of these meet-ups has been this was much fun with too much kit, but I ain't complaining You should have seen how much kit Dean had brought down, I think he must have raided a couple of shops on the way down.

Biggest disappointment for me was my step up transformer which didn't, so opened up the box (a wooden glued thing) and there were 2 dinky transformers. Will investigate placing them in my pre. So we could try my phono stage out.

Any way enough about me and onto the kit.

Can not disagree with the general consensus, the BP 300b SE is an amp to be reckoned with. Had all of the attributes of a really good amp.

The Chord DAC vs CAL valve DAC was almost the classic SS vs Valve thing. The Chord had a punchier sound with more drive whilst the CAL had a slightly slower sound but a smoother Mid and Top. I'm glad I've got the CAL, but if I had the Chord I wouldn't worry.

Zanash is the DIY King. What I like about all of his DIY is that it just doesn't copy what everyone else does. He thinks things through himself really well. His Denon for instance hasn't had either of the standard 2 mods, clock or PSU. Instead lots of copper foil shielding, damping, changing of some capacitors and opamps. Considering we were swapping between this with his MF XDAC (£200 approx) and a very expensive TT combo Michell Gyro/Orbe Platter, Zeta arm Kontrapunkt cartridge (£2000) there was little change in enjoyment of the music.

I will reserve comment on the pulse transformer to go between Transport and DAC as it is doing the rounds for evaluation.

Something which must be commented on were the great sound the Avatars were producing. It is easy to over look the speakers as they were the only thing not changed. They would be too big for my room, but if I were to have a larger room I would put these on my auditioning list.

I also enjoyed yesterday because it gave me a chance to hear some of my own music that I hadn't had a chance to hear yet. (new delivery from Amazon and a couple of eBay wins)

For the Prog Rock guys go out and get OSI (Office of Strategic Influence) a kind of Prog super group and it was fantastic (Well Julian and I liked it).

I will turn the world French with yet more French Fusion - Louis Winsberg : Jaleo, fantastic Franco/Spanish Folky/Jazzy/Rocky artistry.

This write up could go on this gives you an idea of the fun we all had. Many tanks to Chris for his hospitality and I look forward to meeting you guys again sometime in the future.

 

well the hippy arrived before the serious changes took place,mr bottlenecks stock system was running apart from the new wad 300's on amp dutys,very nice indeed, diffrent to my sound but not by much.
As others arrived and the house started to look more like a very good quality second hand hifi store.
The wad kel 84 is a very impressive little beastie,dont be put off for the price,used sensible,this is a very fine starter amp,wouldnt suit the boy racer who wants to make the world vibrate with his one note bass test tones ,but for sensible listning levels you wont find much better at the price.
The wad300 mmmm were did i put that circuit diagram
sorry about the pink floyd geuss what i used for pre show music on last nights show
Thanks chris for putting up with us,hope your next door neigbours ***** gets over the shock:JPS:

 

Well where to start? Firstly huge thanks to Chris for setting the whole thing up and allowing us to turn the place into some kind of electronics warehouse! It was great to meet err.. well almost everyone for the first time.

Fascinating day for me for several reasons not least because it was the first time for many years I've actually listened to vinyl. :duck: So vinyl or CD?? Swings and roundabouts really, at times the LP I thought we were listening to turned out to be CD and vice versa. I must confess here though that most of the time I was too busy enjoying the sounds to really bother about which format it was on.

Also first time I've listened to much gear other than my own. Highlights for me were the WAD integrated which really sounded astonishing value at £280 (I think). Wish I'd found something like that when I was starting my first system. Don't know what its output was but with wider exposure (as long as valve prejudices and power myths could be overcome) I'm sure it could give a lot of the budget solid state amps a good run for anyone's money.
And talking of power myths -Dean's Border Patrol 2 x WE 300b, 9 watts!!!??? :yikes: Chris's speakers are pretty sensitive but what drive - thundering AC/DC and as for the OSI track, power grunge par excellance. So valves can't do rock eh??? In fact the Border Patrol along with Lee's Art Audio pre was highly impressive with everything that was thrown at it. I also enjoyed the WAD 300b mono's and Chris's Lectron amp (which certainly didn't seem to lack grunt and drive to me). Interesting too to listen to 3 different 300b amps (each with three different types of valve!) and I must say I'm intrigued as to what different results trying each type of valve in the same amp would have given.
The “DAC-off†for me was narrowly shaded overall (for my preferred listening style) by the CAL Sigma (well it was a valve day) but the Chord won in the dynamics/detail stakes. Either could I happily live with.

As mentioned above I spent more time grooving to the astonishing range of music from towering plinque to ass kicking raaawwkk. To be honest, there wasn't much that I didn't enjoy. Liked much of Ian's selections (James Brown band for one) but also many thanks to Lee for amongst others the OSI track certainly something else (although I'm not sure exactly what at the moment ) but it sure demands further listening. Moment of genius though has to go to the bluegrass Pink Floyd and :beer: to themadhippy for that!!

Overall though the day for me was about the people and thanks to a fine bunch for a really enjoyable time. (How come grahamN knew almost more about my posts than I did???)

 

Oh and by the way Pete what were those amps of yours ??

 

Hi


First off, I like to thank Chris for his excellent hospitality. I had a good time. It was good to see everyone again. It was good to meet Zanash & Badchamp for the first time.

It was good to hear so much stuff.

A lot of good & interesting music. I had a load of albums & cds. My stuff that was played included.

Stylophonics Man Music Technology (Vinyl)
Yellow Magic Orch. Theme from the (Space) Invaders. (Vinyl)
Ernest Ranglin In search of the lost Riddim (CD)
Giles Peterson Worldwide (CD)
Scritti Politti Songs to remember (Vinyl)
Natalie Cole Ask a Woman who knows (CD)
Thompson Twins A product of..... (Vinyl)
Jill Scott Who is Jill Scott (Vinyl)

On to the equipment.

I didn't get to hear Chris's system at the start. I heard it with the WAD 300B & with the Orbe platter in place. To start of with, we used Chis's Gyrodeck/ Helius Scorpio arm/ Ortofon kontrapunt a cartridge. This was fed into a Conrad Johnson Nuvistor step up then to an EAR phono stage. Then onto an Audio Innovations L1 line stage. The Living Voice Avatars are the speakers.
Also used was Zanash's Modded Denon Cd player as a transport with a MF X dac.



The first change was the WAD Kel84 amp. This £280 15 watt amp sound quite good. It did run out of steam when the going got tough. Loud pumping music stressed it a bit. It was still nice to listen too. High sensitive speakers are the order of the day with this amps. You noticed the strengths were in the mid range. A good kit to build.



The next on the grid was my Edison 12 power amp. I picked this one up on ebay for around £120. This amp first appeared in the 80s (87?). It was design by one of the designers( at the time) of Audio Innovations. Hifi Answers had a version as a kit at the time. It's a 12 watt power amp. The amp did offer more life & drive to the sound whch people liked. The Edison heard the music in a way that was good to listen too. I brought it along to show what you can get 2nd for little money.



The modded Quads were on next. These sounded quite good. I didn't have the life of life of the Edison but was more controlled & natural. Would be interestig too hear these against a pair of original Quads.



The Wad300 took the stage next. I thought these were the single ended jobbies but these are a new push pull items. These were good step up in performance. Quite nice for the money. If you are a dab hand with the soldering iron, these are worth looking into. They woyuld give a lot of the competition a round for the money.


The Audion power amps, another 300b design, did have a nice open sound with good. They presented music in nice easy way. Vocals came across well. They had a lot of that mid range magic that 300B amps have.


Next up was my main weapon of choice. The Border Patrol 300B 9 watts single ended. I brought this along to see how it compares against other amps & to gauge opinion. It showed what can happen if you carefully design a valve amp. As people heard, it wasn't lacking. It had a punchy dynamic detailed & natural sound. It showed that you can get bass out of singled ended amps. Too be truthful it's not a cheap amp. But it has some very good design features, some that you don't see in many valves full stopped. These are no ordinary slipper warmers.



The Lecturn provided some good sounds & was enjoyable to listen too. I agree that did have a more classic valve sound many due to the output valves (pentodes?). Triode output valve are usually leaner sounding.


Also on offer was Lee's Art audio pre which did a good job.



The CD battle was interesting as well. The X dac provided good sound for most of the afternoon. The comparison between my Chord dac & Lee's CAL tube dac was one of the talking points of the day. Would the Chord lose it's crown? Well I did think that overall the Chord was the winner. It had more punch & drive, the bottom end had better note shape. The Cal was more rounded in this area but did have a smoothness & beguiling sound. I can understand people liking & even going for it. It will show a number of dacs a clean pair of heels. For the money, Lee has a bargain.

Put it this way, if I saw one 2nd hand it be added to the SCIDB collection of Hi-Fi.



The Bake off showed that very & enjoyable sound can be had from valves & vinyl. It showed that you don't have to spend a lot to get a reasonable valve amp. It also showed what can be capable if you did spend more money. It show that you can marry a system of valve & cd & get enjoyable music.


The Downside of the afternoon was the fact there wasn't enough time to try the many other items on offer. It would have been nice to try the Rock turntable & the other phono stages. Also the I would have been good to hear my NVA (modded) passive & SJS Arcadia One pre amp with the amps. Next time maybe.

Once again an enjoyable day.

BTW Chris, that board is mine from my table.

Also has anyone seen my Ernest Ranglin 'In Search of the lost Riddem' CD which I am missing. Will check to see if I have lost anything else or picked up any items by mistake.


SCIDB

 

My valve amps were the bastardised Quad II's running El34's.

Thanks folks lots of nice things said to a new commer to these events.

I'll try and show the differences between cables and power cords next time maybe.....just a pity I had to leave when I did.

Thanks again to all those fine people who lugged esoterica across the country, for it to sit in bottlenecks bedroom !

 

what an intriguing and fascinating post...
i have ATM 4 wad amps, and they are excellent...a kel84, kel34, 6550, and 5881, they are indeed superb for the cash....kel84 drives my 89 db speakers to good levels, for all its 12-15 watts.
I heard an audion silver nite, and it was bizarre...it was SO laid back and relaxed, like valium, could've put you to sleep...
still i shudder with the cost of those 300bs if you had 4 to replace at one time...ouch

 

thanks again everyone

Heres a more complete list of left items. If people PM me I will package and post stuff FOC.

CDs
Bruce Cockburn
Dire Straits
Joan Armatrading
Cowboy Junkies
Michelle Shocked
Ana Caram
Joseph Robinson and Knightly
Ulla Meinecke

The following without cases:
Nirvana Lounge
Martyn Joseph

BITS:
gyro power plug thing
MDF board

Think thats it.. if anyones left anything please post it..

It might be a good idea if people looked inside their CD jewel cases too - those two above CDs without boxes were hidden in the wrong cases... you might not have all your CDs, or one too many..

All the best
Cheers
Chris

 

The paper list (of albums played, in order)

Nitin Sawney, Beyond Skin
The trinity sessions, cowboy junkies
Afro Kelt Sound System, real world
Bruce Cockburn Nothing but a burning light
Archie Shepp, Day dream
Johnnie Cash, at san quentin prison
Scritti Polliti - Songs to remember
Carmel
Goldfrapp - blank cherry
Ernest Ranglin - In search of the lost riddum
James Brown - Urban Clowns
Woodstock - three days
dijrhythmia
asa-chang & junray
pickin on pink flloyd - a bluegrass tribute
senor coconut
yellow magic orchestra - theme from the invaders
changes two, bowie
natalie mercant, tiger lily
Max Romeo and the upsetters war is a babylon
thompson Twins - participation
ELP - best of
Schubert 0 string quartet in C
New Orleans funk - the meters
Japan - gentlemen take polaroids
natalie cole - ask a woman who knows
George benson - the ghetto - from Gilles Peterson worldwide
Jill Scott, who is Jill Scott?
ACDC - for those about to rock
Office of Strategic Influenza
Talvin Singh - OK
Talvin Singh - HA
Louis Winsberg - Jaleo
Chopin - Opus 25
Michael Hedges - Aerial Boundaries
Rahsaan roland kirk - blacknuss
Saint Saens Organ symphany (fremaux)
Niacin - niacin
Thelonius Monk - Monk
Keith Jarrett - Up for it
Berlioz - Te Deum
Gong 1988 Live
Miles Davis - Milestones

Sorry about any ommisions, spelling mistakes accindental, and occasionally for comedic purpose.

Chris

 

Little more to say really...excellent day out. I missed the first few amp changes ( - due to making token efforts at tidying the house for a follow-on effort at mine today ), but the sight as I walked in to more 300Bs than I'd ever seen in one room before was quite something (how about posting some of those piccys Dean?).

Nice opportunity to dust off some of my vinyl (quite literally - that Berlioz hadn't been played in about 10 years!). Minor correction - the Schubert was his QUINtet in C (3rd mvmt). And we also finished off with Janacek's Sinfonietta.

I must say I really liked Bottleneck's Lecton, but the jaw-dropper was, as everyone else has said, the Border Patrol. Overall I was once again really quite surprised at how well the jazz/popular stuff sounded, but how difficult it was to get the classical stuff right - nothing really got particularly close on that - my big regret of the day was not getting to try any of that out on the Border Patrol.

Laugh of the day was at the DAC shootout: SCIDB was bopping like a good'un when the Chord was on and stock still when the CAL had its turn......he really ought to be selling Quadraspire! (I actually preferred the CAL to the Chord on what I heard, although it was a close call when the Chord was fitted up with Zanash's doo-hicky.)

Great to meet some new faces, and even some old ones (and you can read that how you like )

 

As the attendee with the furthest to travel, I'm the last to file my report, of course.

A big thanks to Chris for hosting the event and for providing us with the freshments and the pizzas of course.

OK, I'll be the first voice of slight decension.... The first 3 or 4 amps didn't do it for me at all. Sure for the money I suppose it could be seen as churlish to criticise. I've always been a fan of valve as line-level components, such as being used in pre-amps or component output stages like the MF Frog CDP from the early 90s, but have never been totally convinced by sensibly priced power (or integrated) valve amps. The first couple of valve amps on show only went to reinforce my views on the ilk, they were quite sloppy in the bass, over euphonic and seemed very rolled off at the top end.

Jeff's (Badcamp's) Audion's were the light at the end of the tunnel for me after the initial session of cloudiness . Noticeably much more open than the others that came before it, and did I just have my ears syringed or is that top end I can hear? Quite laid back in musical or dynamic presentation compared to what came before, but to my mind it got more things right than the others which tried hard and ended up falling over their 2 left feet.

The star amp of the day for me was of course Dean's Border Patrols, as everyone else has said. These beasts in combination with their rather special power supply and an efficient (90db/w or higher) pair of speakers couldn't exactly be accused of being only for the pipe and slippers brigade. 9W of single ended 300B, surely some mistake. Sounded more like push-pulls to me such was the grip and authority. The vinyl copy of AC/DC's "For Those About To Rock" that I'd brought along sounded absoutely stonking being belted out at room shaking volumes. :MILD:

For more sensible money, I felt the World Audio Design push-pull 300B kit monos at £1200 offered the best value for money of the day.

Chord DAC64 or the CAL DAC? Well, for me, it was the DAC64, mainly for the taughtness and timing abilities (and didn't sound the least bit hard through the valve gear we were running it through). The CAL was definitely an alternative rather being a poor relation in anyway. The CAL certainly had that un-mistakeable organic and natural quality to it's mids that is the main (elusive?) preserve of valves, IMHO. Strangely enough, I felt the DAC64 would be better suited to valve amplification rather than solid state, whereas the CAL would fit in very nicely for a solid state amp owner who wanted to add valve qualities and smoothness, or a more beguiling sound to their system.

A fun day out as always, and good to meet up with lots of familiar faces again, and to meet Mr DIY Zanash for the first time. I could hear a difference when we put the digital iso transformer in, but to be honest it was subtle - it was an improvement I felt though - and yes even through the DAC64.

Oh and Chris, don't worry about getting an SME arm, I thought your T/T with the Orbe platter was great. I felt instantly at home with that combo!

I think I've now got enough album purchases on my to-buy list compiled from the last 2 days to keep me going until the end of the year now!

 

Hi


Thanks for all the top comments about my Border Patrol power amp. It goes to show what you can do with olde worlde technology.


Yes they are rated at 9 watts/channel.

Have a look
here for the specs & design pointers. Mine is the 300B single ended stereo.


GrahamN to answer your point.

That is easy to explain. I noticed some ants on the floor & I tried to stamp on them. I kept missing them as they darted around the floor. Strange this happen when the music started on the Chord Dac. They seemed to have disappeared by the time of the CAL dac was playing. Funny that

Come on! My dancing wasn't that bad.


SCIDB

 

:boogie:

 

ooops


screw up on my part.



the monoblocks we heard (WAD) were single ended, not push pull. 3oob PSE monoblocks, 20w per channel.

they do an identical looking pair that are push pull, and Id got them confused.

This (for me) helps to explain the similar family sound they seemed to share with the Audions (IMHO).

Sorry everyone.
Chris