Valve amp reccomendations
Discussion
Audio Innovations S500 or S700. British Built and available for £400 to £750 depending on age and valves included. The S500 has a Phono section for Turntables whereas the S700 only has line level. Had mine since 1992. You do need to be more careful with Valve amps but they do repair easily. Many Chinese amps are a bit suspect in the build quality department so I'd avoid them. Their are a few reputable British designed and QC'ed Chinese Amps so these are worth looking at. The Affordable Valve Company being one but Prices Start at £500.
Edited by telecat on Sunday 17th July 17:43
Globs said:
Unless you know enough to modify and solder, the only one I can recommend being good straight out of the box is the Yaqin MC10-L, which sounds superb, is reliable and available at £269 delivered.
Else go to Icon Audio!
Do they really need that much modding out of the box or would it suit my needs for a shiney glowey thing initially? (and not sound ***)Else go to Icon Audio!
It might be worthwhile nipping over to HiFi Wigwam and ask the question there. There are lots of horror stories around about really cheap Chinese valve amps, and it's worth doing a fair bit of research before spending any money. As far as the Affordable Valve Company is concerned, Google is your friend 
Second hand: Audio Innovations as mentioned, or '90s Audion (British built and British/Swedish designed, some key personnel links to AI too) which is very good. £500 buys you a single ended EL34 Sterling (12W pc doesn't sound much but they've got plenty of drive for sympathetically chosen 'normal' speakers), sometimes the single ended 300B Silver Night comes up for £700 or so - an absolute steal if you've got high efficiency speakers to go with it. If the latter is the case an Audio Innovations First Audio triode power amp would also give a real taste of the high end at that sort of price.
If you own any of the above, 'upgrading' involves a soldering iron and progressively more expensive components rather than swapping boxes...
The difference with most of the Chinese Ebay specials however is that it's not a necessity.
New - the Puresound P10 is £595 and a rather decent entry into valve amps.
If you own any of the above, 'upgrading' involves a soldering iron and progressively more expensive components rather than swapping boxes...
The difference with most of the Chinese Ebay specials however is that it's not a necessity.
New - the Puresound P10 is £595 and a rather decent entry into valve amps.
Edited by 900T-R on Monday 18th July 11:08
David A said:
Globs said:
Unless you know enough to modify and solder, the only one I can recommend being good straight out of the box is the Yaqin MC10-L, which sounds superb, is reliable and available at £269 delivered.
Else go to Icon Audio!
Do they really need that much modding out of the box or would it suit my needs for a shiney glowey thing initially? (and not sound ***)Else go to Icon Audio!
Music Angel in my experience is pretty good but needs some work. The worst I found with my cheap chinese amp was the WIMA coupling capacitors being fakes or badly treated recycled ones, it sounded pretty hollow and muffled until I changed those for some regular 1kV polypropylene, at which point it sounded pretty good. I'd never been convinced about 'capacitor sound' until then - it was night and day.
When you find one on eBay do a google search for the model including terms like DIY, faults, upgrades and see what people's experiences are. You can also buy some good tube amp kits but you need to ask in diyaudio.com for proper recommendations first. Apart from the MC10-L I regard cheap chinese amps as a partly assembled kit, you can get some fantastic sound out of them but some need more work than others.
As stock, delivered, the MC10-L sounds great, and if you upgrade the EL34s and 6N1Ps it will improve further. Each time you have a choice of tube though google it - research first will save you later! The only real mod I'd consider in the MC10-L if I were buying it would be to float the heater voltage up to about 65V to stress the driver tubes less, but a relative has one without that and it works fine, stomping out the liquid music
Cool, thanks for the info guys. I was thinking of a YAQIN MC-100B. Seem to be around £4-450 plus customs/vat etc
I'll do some googling and see if any horrer stories turn up. Ideally if it works well out of the box to start with and gives me some tinkering options later that would be cool.
I'll do some googling and see if any horrer stories turn up. Ideally if it works well out of the box to start with and gives me some tinkering options later that would be cool.
David A said:
Cool, thanks for the info guys. I was thinking of a YAQIN MC-100B. Seem to be around £4-450 plus customs/vat etc
I'll do some googling and see if any horrer stories turn up. Ideally if it works well out of the box to start with and gives me some tinkering options later that would be cool.
The 100B is a much more complex beast, there are alternates from Music Angel and Music curve. I've always liked the look of this one: http://www.xshn.com/en/display.asp?id=9I'll do some googling and see if any horrer stories turn up. Ideally if it works well out of the box to start with and gives me some tinkering options later that would be cool.
But ended up getting a Music Angel KT88 as a basic for a project with GU50 tubes..
Google for a few days about them, it's good fun, you learn loads and it'll get you a better idea of what's around. Bear in mind your ability with a soldering iron and read this if unfamiliar with HT: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/tubes-valves/30172-...
Well not one for doing too much research and jumping in with both feet, I've ordered a chinese yaqin mc-100b.
Seem to be some good options for mucking about with it, but it should be ok out of the box too. Bloody big though according to the dimensions!
Will report back in a couple of weeks! More googling about how pimp it up now
Dave
Seem to be some good options for mucking about with it, but it should be ok out of the box too. Bloody big though according to the dimensions!
Will report back in a couple of weeks! More googling about how pimp it up now
Dave
David A said:
Well not one for doing too much research and jumping in with both feet, I've ordered a chinese yaqin mc-100b.
Seem to be some good options for mucking about with it, but it should be ok out of the box too. Bloody big though according to the dimensions!
Will report back in a couple of weeks! More googling about how pimp it up now
Dave
Awesome - it's the 'TVR' choice in car terms I reckon, a mighty beast! Now you need to chase down the schematics and coupling capacitor upgrades usually required. Post the schematic up here when you find it - always interesting and will save us hunting!Seem to be some good options for mucking about with it, but it should be ok out of the box too. Bloody big though according to the dimensions!
Will report back in a couple of weeks! More googling about how pimp it up now
Dave
That Unison Research 4 looks nice too - wouldn't be surprised if the Chinese OEM was Music Angel - I'll have to dig out the circuit!
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