Actually, it was 2004. Those years add up! :)
I think I have found the End Game Amp
For the past couple of years I have been searching for a power amp that plays well with the highly resolving nature of the Esoteric K-01XDSE source and the Rockport Atria II speakers.
How do I get a mid-range to captivate without losing the sense of air and space?
The K-01 and the Atrias deserved something great in between but I could not bring myself to spend $25k - $50k if I went all out on both pre and power. Building an amp is surely easier than building transducers?
The closest I came was with a Cary SLP-98 pre - with NOS RCA 6SN7s and the Elekit 8900 running Black Plate 2A3s. There was not quite enough power, slight sounds of strain at fff and not quite the warmth in the mids.
I was enamored of the 2A3 sound and wondered if there exists a PP or PSET 2A3 amp, so I discovered and contacted Frank Ng at Triode Labs. He had recently found a pair of Tamura OPTs and Tango chokes and had built a pair of the PP 2A3 GT-C amps that I could have immediately! Working with Frank was an absolute joy, getting a story of his constant search for the Tamura OPTs, and seeing his views on various tubes.
He gave me great price (he supplied only the 6SQ7s) and I was able to pay through PayPal - I rounded up (dividing by .96) to cover the fees. I got him to autograph the base plates!
The shipping boxes were superbly protective but easy to unpack.
Even cold out of the box I could hear something special; there is just a natural quality to the sound. The amps now have about 30 hours and Frank expects break in to be about 200.
Everything I play sounds - I am not sure of the word - but "right" seems to fit. I have played everything, from Angela Hewitt's Goldbergs - you can clearly her management of tone from her Fazioli piano - to Simon Rattle's Mahler 7 (Bavarian Rundfunk). Also the Borodin recording of Shostakovitch quartet 9, the Beethoven op.132, the Sveshnikov Rachmaninov Vespers with Klara Korkan's haunting mezzo, Hilary Hahn playing Bach. AMAZING!
There will be some tube rolling to fine tune (!) everything but at this time the SLP 98 has coin base a 6SN7 gain stage, Tung Sol buffers. The GT-C has Motorola branded 6SQ7s, Smoked glass RCA 6SN7s, JAN Black Plate 2A3s and Sophia 274B rectifiers in the main amp..
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@jond looking at your system I am reminded that in the late '90s I had the A/N Dac-1, a lovely unit. That was fed by a Theta Data transport and served me until 2009 when, the DAC died and was pronounced unfixable and the Theta had been having CD Drawer issues for a few months. I auditioned a bunch of devices at Sound by Singer and I decided on the Esoteric X-03SE. At this time SACDs of the Living Stereo releases were becoming available, and I have stuck with the Esoteric brand ever since. now having the K-01XDSE - which is about as far, conceptually, from your DAC-3 as one can imagine! It is interesting that our amplification choices share a basic approach and the DACs are from different planets while we are in search of the same goal. My journey to 2A3s was through 300Bs, I had VAC Ren units and then built an Elekit 8900 - using 300Bs. I then bought an entry level pair of 2A3s - just to see - and was hooked. Wonderful sound but just shy of a few watts, hence the PP. |
- 27 posts total