Pdreher: Thank you!
Building the Audio Note Kit 1 SET amp...
Hi, Folks,
If anyone's interested, I've started a blog with lots of photos, documenting my ongoing build of the Audio Note Kit 1 300B SET amp. If you've ever thought of building any kit before and want to get a feel for what it's like, you're welcome to have a look!
If anyone's interested, I've started a blog with lots of photos, documenting my ongoing build of the Audio Note Kit 1 300B SET amp. If you've ever thought of building any kit before and want to get a feel for what it's like, you're welcome to have a look!
Showing 50 responses by rebbi
Whart, The only upgrades I purchased, due to budget constraints, were better capacitors for the 300B driver board (Mundorf Supreme Gold/Silver/Oil) and a 3 position input selector switch. But I can do other upgrades down the road... that's one of the nice things about building a kit. I'm planning on using this amp with my Reference 3A De Capo BE's. I'll let everyone know how it works out. Halcro: Thanks for the kind comments (and for showing that you can use emoji's in Audiogon posts... who knew?) Wordpress makes it pretty easy to toss together a good looking blog. Amazingly, many of those photos were taken with an iPhone 4S! Some of them were taken with my old DSLR, but the iPhone makes it really easy to get tight close up shots. Grannyring: Thanks! Roxy: Many thanks. What's the rest of your system, speakers especially? Your "System" link strangely points to a thread called "Where's Tvad?" ;-) islandmandan: Thank you! I'm glad you like my soldering joints. Some are prettier than others but you get better as you go. But man, I nailed the tip of my left hand middle finger yesterday when my soldering iron slipped, and whoa, nelly, let's just say there was some extended swearing going on. Nice blister there now but at least it's no longer throbbing! That was bound to happen at least once. At least there's a good story to go with it. Closest I'll ever come to a sports injury. ;-) |
Jetrexpro: It was pretty cool. Actually, the first big thrill just plunking the thing down on my component cabinet next to the turntable. It's quite a visually beautiful thing in and of itself. My non-audiophile (but music loving) wife and daughter took a look at it and said, "That's what you've been building? It's beautiful!" That was a great moment. |
Rsclyde, As the OP, I've got no problem or concerns with your "hijacking the thread." Ask away! I'm happy for this thread to become a home to general Audio Note Kit conversation. I am getting rather close now to the end of my build. Speaker posts attached, RCA posts attached. Next comes the input selector switch and the volume pot and I should be ready to begin testing. Wish me luck!! |
Roxy, I've heard that the Khozmo attenuator is a significant upgrade, but Brian steered me away from installing it from the get-go. He suggested getting the kit successfully built and burned in, and then perhaps doing that upgrade down the road. The part itself is about $180 on Partsconnexion.com, so it's not extremely pricey to retrofit. |
Jetrexpro: Hi! I've had a busy work week and have only had sporadic time here and there to work on the kit. :-( I've also offered to help Brian to edit the final version of the assembly manual for the Kit 1 2014 Edition, which is due to be ready for distribution by the end of the month. So that's taken some time, too. So, in building my kit, I've been working with an incomplete, "beta" version of the build manual, which has somewhat slowed me down because it's necessitated a good number of Q and A emails back and forth between Brian and me. But I've learned a lot in the process and I feel confident that the new assembly manual will be very good. As for the kit itself, I have the wires soldered to the Elma input selector switch and I'm just about ready to make the connections to the Driver Board and the RCA inputs. At that point, we'll be ready for power on (without tubes!) and voltage checks. So expect to see another blog post by the end of MLK day on Monday! |
Hey, Folks, As Mapman wrote, it's been a little while since I posted in this thread so here's an update. A few things are clear: First, the Audio Note Kit 1 has more than enough juice to drive my Reference 3A De Capo's to satisfying volume levels with excellent dynamics. That question is put to bed. Second, this amp is indeed a MAJOR step up from the Manley Mahi push-pull mono-blocks I had used previously. I have no doubt now about the wisdom of making the move. I'll have more to say about this in a full review after the amp is fully broken in. What I will say at this point is that if the Kit 1 sounds this gorgeous with the stock, pedestrian Chinese tubes, I can't wait to hear what it sounds like with better glass. :-) Third, I am having one sonic issue on certain musical material that Brian of Audio Note is convinced is a build problem. Either I miswired something along the way (unlikely) or I else got a bad tube or other part in the Driver stage or something similar. Brian has been great about support and troubleshooting. I hope to have this resolved shortly and then I'll give all of you (and the blog) a fuller report. Talk to you soon and thanks for your interest! |
Charles and Mikirob, Yes, I am still totally open to and interested in Tekton. A speaker that efficient that might give me something like another 7 or 8 Hz on the bottom end is very appealing. And as I said, sebrof's speakers (although I know they are smaller than the Lore, but not that much smaller) were far more petite and decor-friendly then I would have imagined. I do trust all those reviewers who love Eric's products. As a matter fact, Tim Smith and I corresponded a bit, not about speakers but about my issues with my amplifier versus the Dynamo that he was so fond of. He also thought that the Audio Note Kit 1 was a great choice – he has heard that gear at shows and has loved it. I think Tim is located in Canada and Brian Smith had a room at the Toronto show this past year that was very, very highly reviewed. As I mentioned, I have also spoken with Eric twiceand in both cases was very impressed with his knowledge and his graciousness. My first step is to get the Kit 1 healthy and then I should have a much better idea how it partners with the the capital's. As I said earlier, I was hearing A LOT of magic even with the amp in its current state, so I am very interested to hear how it sounds when it is working completely properly. |
Sorry, posted that previous comment prematurely. I also meant to say that even if my current speakers sound even more marvelous with my healthy, fixed up amp, I may still give one of Eric's speakers a whirl if I can be certain I can take the financial hit if I decide to return them. I think he charges a restocking fee, does he not? So I would be on the hook for that as well as for the return shipping. By the way, Rob, talk about Tekton all you want – I really don't mind, I swear! :-) |
Grannyring, I think you bring a really valuable perspective. Do you want the amp to sing or the speakers to sing? Or, ideally, both? Brian Smith of Audio Note Kits says that their high-end EL34 is a fantastic piece of work that combines the delicacy and magic of SET with the guts and drive of push-pull. He's definitely encouraging me to try it. Decisions, decisions! |
Grannyring: "Deeper connection to the amp" indeed. I almost can't imagine buying a finished piece of electronics at this point. The build process was just SO satisfying! And I learned so much. Also, I'd have no hesitation to pop the bottom off the chassis and fix or upgrade a part, which I'd never dream of doing with a finished product. I wouldn't claim to understand the Kit 1 as Andy Grove or Brian Smith understand it - I’m not an electrical engineer. But I certainly understand how it works in the sense of how it fits together, and that's a cool feeling! :-D |
Wow, so many interesting perspectives. How much fun would it be to get all of us together in the same place to talk audio and music? ;-) Mikirob, I am very curious about your Tektons. They are SO reasonably priced and I'm wondering whether they're "too good to be true." On the other hand, they consistently get very, very positive reviews from so many sources. Part Time Audiophile (Scott Hull) loves them, for instance. The De Capo's are a very refined speaker, although, like everything else audio, they're not for everyone. So I'm wondering whether a speaker like the Lore, which is 1/3 the price of a new pair of De Capo's, can match their refinement. So do tell: how do you like your Tektons? Swampwalker and others: I understand the subwoofer suggestion and appreciate that practical wisdom None the less, I don't think I want to go down that road. It feels to me like potentially adding one more complication to my rig, which I'm not eager to pursue. I'll sacrifice "the bottom octave" to get a well integrated sound from a single pair of speakers. Maybe that's foolish of me but it's where I am right now. Almarg: Always love to hear your suggestions and appreciate your calm guidance. ;-) Grannyring: As I've said before, your points are well taken. Brian believes, for example, that his tricked out EL34 push-pull is unbelievably brilliant and "SET-like." It's an Andy Grove design, like the Kit 1, so that’s worth something. Tubegroover: To clarify in response to your comments of 2/7/15: I was never unhappy with my previous Manley/De Capo combo. I'd learned that I liked tubes a lot more than SS (I'd had a Bel Canto Class D amp prior to the Manley's). It was the comment of a fellow in Switzerland (IIRC) with the monitor "morricab" on Audio Asylum - a big Ref 3A fan - who said, "If you really want to hear the De Capo's sing, try them with the SET amp," that sent me down this rabbit hole! (Go to the blog post called "Why SET" to get a fuller picture if you're interested - and if you're not, I'm not insulted!) Anyway, I have no regrets; it's been super fun. And I will reiterate: the AN Kit 1 is a superb music maker... I'll be posting Part II of my listening impressions in a day or two. What I'm finding is that for much of what I like to listen to (and my music collection is VERY eclectic) the De Capo/Kit 1 combo is fine... with many flashes of smile-inducing brilliance. But some music, especially pop music with hip-hop-like synth bass (standard bass guitar or acoustic bass seems more than fine) will, at room energizing volume levels, cause the amp to clip in a way that's not subtle. Turning down the volume stops the clipping. I should emphasize that in many ways it's amazing what the Kit 1 CAN do with 8 watts into a questionably "92 db, 8 ohm speaker" (which may in reality be more like 87 db and 6 ohms if you believe the NRC measurements). Can it rock? Oh, heck yeah! I was listening to the Eagles Greatest Hits 2 CD set. The opening of Victim Of Love, raucous guitars and loud drum hits and all, sounded amazing! I was grinning like the proverbial kid in the candy store. The amp seems to have no problem with "instrumental" bass, electric or acoustic. But I have a 13 year old daughter who turned me on to Lorde's album "Pure Heroine," which is full of very low, sustained synth bass lines and turning the amp up to "let's party" levels causes the amp to clip. (On the other hand, Lorde's voice sound eerily real.) Same with a few tracks from another album I love, Sade's latest "Soldier Of Love." Do I sell my speakers for the sake of a few songs from a few albums... well, maybe. ;-) |
Smctiuge1: "Rebbi, for the sake of De Capo owners in the future looking to experiment with SET it may be beneficial to explain why this thread took the turn it has. Earlier in the thread you commented that the power issue had "been put to bed." Good question and fair enough. I think I spoke too soon in that earlier comment. Additionally, when I said what I said, I was still entertaining the possibility that I'd messed up something in the build or perhaps gotten a bad tube. I finally figured out (with Brian's of ANK's help) that the amp was fine but that a few of my favorite tracks from a couple of albums that I've been keeping in heavy rotation would overtax the amp to distortion if I played them at accustomed volumes. For a great deal of what I've listened to so far, the combination sounds marvelous! I know this is a threadbare cliché, but I find myself wanting to just sit and listen; it's like I'm being reintroduced to music I've been listening to for years, but in a deeper way. And yes, the "issue has been put to bed" in the sense that if you don't listen to modern, electronic music, and your listening room is small to medium-small, and you're not a total head banger intent on ruining your hearing entirely, the De Capo / Kit 1 combo might make you very happy for a very long time. But, if any of these things doesn’t' apply to you, then I think (and my opinion on this may change over time, so "for now") that the suitability of the De Capo's with any 8.5 Watt 300B SET amp is "borderline." It just so happens that I hit the limits of the pairing early on because I threw some pop music at them that - with "subterranean," hip-hop flavored synth bass - caused the Kit 1 to run out of steam and distort at moderate (in my judgment) volumes. It's like I got the "bad news" early on, and then discovered the good news later in spades. Does that make sense? As I was listening to a "guilty pleasure" Michael Franks LP from the early 1980's tonight, not expecting much except that I liked the tunes and the musicianship, I was flabbergasted (truly) with what the Kit 1 did with that album. The music was involving and sounded beautiful in a way I've never heard it sound in the 22 years since I bought that LP. I kept thinking, "Oh, so THAT'S what the recording engineer had in mind!" The Kit 1 managed to extract a hidden beauty out of that record that I didn't know was there. By the way, what PP amp did you end up pairing with the DC's? |
Smctigue1: Oh, also: have you ever heard the Omega's? I spoke to the proprietor and designer who sounds like a lovely guy. He really believes that his hemp cone drivers have eliminated the classic bad rap on single driver speakers: harsh midrange "shout" and limited bandwidth. The super alnico model is probably out of my price range but the Super 7XRS Mk2 might hit the economic sweet spot. |
Mikirob: Spoke to Eric Alexander at Tekton last week and he sounds like a really stand-up guy. His prices are unbelievably reasonable and his 60 day trial makes trying one of his speaks into a lower risk proposition. Given my amp and my room, he recommended the Lore or Lore 2.0. It's something I'm considering. He, himself, is not a huge fan of low power amps (although he owns some) but he said that lots of his customers are happily running his designs with SET's. He opined that "Running an 8 watt SET with a 92 db speaker is like running a Ferrari with the cruise control stuck on 55 mph. You'll never really see what the amp is capable of." He also jokes that "Amps are tools. One night you're going to want to crank The Who and then you may want to have a more powerful amp on hand." ;-) Good guy. |
Charles, Yes, quantity does not equal quality – so much of it is about the interaction between the speaker, the amplifier and the room. When I first started to get back into audio actively in the mid-2000's, I sold my 1986- era PS Audio Elite + (70 W per channel integrated, all hardwired) and bought a Unison Unico (used) hybrid, integrated amp with a tubed input stage and a transistor output stage. It was actually a beautiful amp. But by that point I had been through several different kinds of speakers and had Ohm Walsh 100's, which do like power. At this point I was heavily into horse trading on Audiogon, and picked up a Bel Canto S300 power amp (Class D) which I paired with a used Manley Shrimp tube preamp, on the theory that the preamp would "warm-up" the sound of the solid-state power amp. By this point I had moved on to a pair of Merlin monitors, the TSM-MMI's. These are voiced with tube amplification, or so the word is on the street, so it was at that point that I sold the class D amp and picked up the Manley Mahi mono-blocks. These sounded much, much nicer with the Merlin speakers then the class DM had. So yes, I have generally let my speaker choice drive the choice of power, but this time around it may just be different because this new amp is so impressive. |
I can't imagine what it would cost to ship these babies from Cyprus (the location of the seller) to the US, but look. Good price, though (before shipping)! |
Brownsfan, So helpful, thank you. What intrigues me about the TE's, besides the fact that they're specifically designed for SET amps like those made by Coincident, is that they echo some of the design elements of the De Capo: slanted front baffle for time alignment, simple crossover and so on. I just have a feeling that the TE's have a more dead, robust cabinet. By the way, do your De Capo's have the BE tweeter and the Nextel finish? Mine are wood veneered but I retrofitted the BE tweeter, which I find wonderful. Again, thank you so much for the informative post. |
Smctigue, I don't take your skepticism at all personally but I wanted to comment on your post. I've drawn most of my observations based upon music that I've listened to over and over again. I had the Shrimp and Mahi's in my system (and was quite happy with them) for the better part of 4 years, if memory serves, and during that time, I became very accustomed to how they played my favorite music. I mean, if I had a dollar for every time I played "Chan Chan" from Buena Vista Social Club and "All I Wanna Do" from Sheryl Crow's Greatest Hits... well, I'd be able to afford the Coincident Triumph Extreme Mk II's. :-P So, when you plug a new amp into the system, and suddenly it's, "Wow, I've never heard that before," it's a pretty good indicator that something is very different and that new information has been revealed. Just saying. |
Again, not to be defensive here, but I thought of one other example of what I want to convey. In 1986, a year out of grad school, working full time, single and with some discretionary income burning a hole in my pocket, I went shopping for my first really good stereo. This was metro NYC, before the Internet, when there were still lots of brick and mortar stereo stores in NYC and the 'burbs. I schlepped a copy of James Taylor's "That's Why I'm Here" LP to every audition at every store. In those days, I was fixated on a bass guitar glissando that comes in around 5 measures into the song. If it sounded like a stringed instrument and captured the whole bass guitar sound, I was impressed (which was how I ended up with a pair of the original Vandersteen 2C's). So, I've been listening to that album for about 30 years. Anyway, about 7 measures after the bass guitar glissando, an electric piano comes in. And the first time I heard it on the Kit 1, I grinned because the piano floated in front of the speakers and swirled around the room, which had never happened before. That's the kind of experience I'm talking about. Mapman: What's missing? Hmmm.... good question. Low end is surprisingly powerful, especially given the rep of 300B amps, but perhaps the grip of the Manley's was a little firmer? Hard to say. That's why I'd be so curious to hear this amp on a pair of more efficient speakers that didn't make it work so hard. Other than that, not much. I mean, shoot, I was listening to something else this morning, something very familiar, that gave me the chills, that's how musically captivating it sounded. |
Charles, As for the lack of drama in the thread, yes, I appreciate that as well. "Real life" provides enough of that already! Here we ought to enjoy ourselves, learn new things from each other and help each other out. (Come to think of it, we should be doing more of that in real life, too.) As for the Katz Meow's, I got a kick out of hearing them. And it was very generous of sebrof to drag them up a flight of stairs with me to put them into his main rig. (He has a great listening space, by the way.) First of all, I really liked the look. They are a lot more diminutive than I'd expected; kind of "cute," really! And those shiny, white, Fostex 8-inch'ers look very sharp against the matte black cabinet. I'm also very intrigued to see how Eric's design philosophy has evolved. You see a theme there: the wide range driver supplemented by the super tweeter. But he put the tweeter in a separate housing up top, stepped back for time alignment. I have to imagine this was more expensive and involved to produce than his current, rectangular cabinets but I'm wondering why he dropped time alignment as I believe (from my experience with the De Capo's and that fact that Israel Blume employs it in the Coincident TE II's) that it has real benefits. So I think sebrof has the 2.0 version. I've looked at Internet photos of version 3.0 and it featured a series of slotted ports down the front of the cabinet. Interesting. I don't remember where sebrof's are ported, perhaps he can chime in. As for the sound, I was under some time pressure to get back to work so we plunked them down in front of all his other gear (which is amazing, by the way) so they weren't getting any boundary reinforcement. All that's to say that I was rushed and we couldn't place them carefully and ideally. That said, I found what I heard to be very good; incisive and clear with great tone. But that's really as far as I could get. I'd like to spend more time with them or another Tekton design in an environment where we could tweak placement to the nth degree. Let me also compliment sebrof on his Tube Audio Lab 2A3 kit. It sounds really sweet. |
Hi, Mikirob: Sounds like I aggravated you, which was not my intention! My budget, if I do sell them, will be "whatever I can get for the De Capo BE's." I don't want to speculate to specifically on what that might be but I'd have to guess it would be in the sub $2K arena. That said, don't take my questions about the Coincident Triumph Extremes as ignoring your carefully reasoned and informed advice. As things now stand, the TE's are out of the financial ballpark for me unless I sit tight for quite awhile and try to save up for them. I corresponded with Israel Blume of Coincident and he confirmed that the speakers would be $3000 US delivered. No home trials are available due to their pricing structure. He added that in 20 years of doing business this way they've never had a case of buyer's remorse. At this point I'm leaning toward sitting tight with what I have for a bit, allowing the amp to further settle in, and enjoying the current system for what it does well. I do have little doubt, though, that I'd get even more out of the system with higher sensitivity, easier to drive speakers than what I now have. But I also don't want to do a "ready, fire, aim" on this. There's no rush! |
Tubegoover, You may be right. I can only pass along what he told me in an email. I asked him if there was a home trial, or if he had any TE customers in my neck of the woods whose TE's I might audition, but he did not. That said, only he knows what his profit margins need to be to keep the business afloat. I will say that Israel was a pleasure to talk to and seemed very knowledgable about speaker design. I just don't see myself buying a $3K pair of monitors sight unseen/unheard. I'm thinking that if I do decide to replace the De Capo's, it's going to have to be from someone like Omega or Tekton that offers a home trial. Zu, by the way, also offers a home trial, but something about their aggressive, hipster/lifestyle marketing puts me off. Maybe that's silly snobbery on my part, but there you go. Of course, the wildcard would be some fantastic deal on used gear coming along. You never know. |
Mapman: Interesting thoughts. I've heard the newer Klipsch gear dismissed with the same "mid-fi" label/attitude as some people talk about Bose... although not quite as forcefully! My concern with Klipsch these days is that they are making so many different speaker models that it's hard to tell what's what. Amazon.com alone has a dizzying range of Klipsch speakers for sale. But if anybody knows of a great one in the sub-2K dollar range, I'd be glad to check it out. As for single drivers, I spoke to Louis, the owner-designer of Omega, sometime last week. He does offer a 30-day trial. If you look at that single driver thread I started, though, a lot of the chatter was VERY negative. My gut from what I've read is that a wide-range driver topped off by a tweeter for the highest frequencies is the way to go. But again, if any of you have heard an efficient, single-driver speaker in the sub $2K price range that you liked, let us know! |