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Budget Chinese Tube amps - any good?

In the midst of searching for a budget tube amp. Lots of chinese made models keep popping up. The price on these amps are often really low and would give someone like me a chance to try the tube sound for cheap.

Do you guys have any good experiences with them?

Reason I'm asking is that I hear many conflicting experiences online on each amp. Some say their amps are really good, some say they are really bad - each model might have 5 good reviews and 5 bad reviews. I guess this is par for course with audio, where subjectivity is the rule of the game. However, chinese amps tend to have the largest disparity of opinions.

The models I've read up on so far are: Mingda amps, Miniwatt N3, Yaqin amps etc.
milesandcoltrane

Showing 1 response by lloydc

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lloydc
734 posts
 
I tried an inexpensive chinese SET amp, out of curiosity. The build quality was poor, but it worked. I suppose I got a taste for the proverbial SET midrange sound. It was not good enough to keep, no real highs or lows, so I quickly reverted to my high-power American-made tube amp. The preceding posters all gave you excellent advice, especially for someone new to tubes.

There is gear built in China, but designed elsewhere and subject to European, American or Japanese standards of quality control, which represents good value. But if you had to choose between new Cayin or used AR...
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