Premium RCA Female Sockets

 It's always nice when you see improvements being made on components that we take for granted in the audio world.  I had these full insulating sockets made up for using in the Aurealis MC SUTs as high quality gold over copper female RCAs were becoming increasingly expensive.
 
These are beautifully machined by AEC in Taiwan.  They use a delrin body which means that it's much easier to isolate the RCA from the enclosure. Internal insulation is teflon, and contacts are gold over CuTe (copper tellurium).

The solder tags are prominent and easy to work with.  The external grey nut is actually coated brass so it's very robust and turns smoothly on the delrin body.  It's very easy to get a tight grip on the enclosure.



And as would be expected from such high quality components, the sound quality is exceptional. 

As AEC's minimum order quantity is relatively large, I have some of these for sale on the DIY page at www.aurealisaudio.com.au

Aurealis Audio - www.aurealisaudio.com.au

Finally after several years of selling audio accessories on Ebay, and battling with its ever increasing fees, I have moved most of the Aurealis Audio products over to a new independent website:  www.aurealisaudio.com.au

This is the first time I've been able to put all the information on the Aurealis interconnects and speaker cables in the one place. This has also enabled a consolidation and expansion of the range.  There is now a method to the madness and the distinctions between the various Aurealis cables now make some logical sense.  Here's a quick rundown of what is available:

Interconnects

R1 series - a mix of 20, 24 and 28 awg.  Available in all copper UPOCC wire or a mix of copper and silber.

R2 series - fine wire interconnects - using only 28awg - 3 versions: UPOCC silver, UPOCC copper and silver plated copper.

Phono cables, including a version with a Din style plug termination at the tonearm end.

 Speaker Cables 

UP Series - available in sizes from 20 awg up to 12 awg - UPOCC solid core wire only.

SP Series - available in sizes from 17awg up to 12 awg - silver-plated solid core copper

HG Series - heavy gauge cables available in UPOCC as a mix of solid core and multistrand UPOCC

DIY

Bulk UPOCC copper wire and silver plated wire, and a variety of connectors are also available on the site. 

New Speaker Cable Build

Aurealis Interconnects - The R1 and R2 Series

Here's a brief rundown on the Aurealis analog interconnects currently in production. They are available for sale at my Ebay store AT Accessories. All cables use high quality components, with nearly all being based around Neotech Teflon insulated UPOCC solid core wire and Eichmann RCAs or other copper Tellurium RCAs. (The only exception is the Aurealis R2 CuB which non-Neotech wire.) The cables provide excellent sound quality at a reasonable price and out-compete many cables costing up to four times the price.

Aurealis R1 – Analog Interconnects

R1 with Eichmann bullets

The original Aurealis R1 is a copper / silver hybrid design. Each interconnect features 2 strands of Neotech UPOCC copper (20awg and 24awg) and a single strand of Neotech silver (28 or 30awg depending on supply.

 The inclusion of the silver wire provides just a little extra sparkle to the upper frequency range of the music.

The all copper version of the R1 is identical in design but features 28awg copper wires instead of silver. It is a little more warm sounding and people with systems that tend to be on the bright side often prefer all copper cabling.

R1 with VaLab RCAs

In terms of overall performance the R1s offer excellent clarity and detail. They deliver a wide frequency range and a broad soundstage.

These are very neutral sounding interconnects. Vocals and lead instruments seem to sit more naturally in the mix.

The R1s can be terminated in the following RCA connectors:

• Eichmann copper Tellurium bullets
• VaLab copper tellurium
• Eichmann silver bullets

Aurealis R2 – Analog Interconnects

R2 AgS

These are a completely different design to the R1s. They use thin wire only, either 28awg or 30awg and are available in three versions:

R2 CuB – 30awg silver-plated copper wire terminated in Eichmann brass RCAs.

R2 CuT – 28awg Neotech copper wire terminated in Eichmann copper Tellurium RCAs.

R2 AgS – 30awg Neotech wire terminated in Eichmann silver bullets.

R2 CuT

The sound presentation is different to the R1s. The R2s have a narrower soundstage, but more depth, and are more upfront sounding. They tend to push lead vocals and lead instruments forward from the speakers, and are a very good match for a system that may sound a touch laid back. However, some people prefer these to the R1s simply because of their more forward presentation.

R2 CuB

 In terms of the difference between the interconnects: the CuBs are lively and dynamic and a little bright. The CuTs are much more mellow and have what I describe as a warmer more coppery tone. The AgSs being an all silver interconnect are very open and smooth sounding, with excellent resolution of detail.

Audio Origami PU7 - One word: Astonishing

  

The photo shows my red Rega with its brand new Audio Origami PU7 tonearm.  The slab of vinyl it's spinning is Peter Tosh's "Bush Doctor" which is very relevant to how the PU7 performs but I'll come back to that later.

Up to now my tonearm which did duty on my main deck was a Michell Tecnoarm.  The Tecnoarm and I got on really well for what is close to 6 years.  It played well with every cartridge I threw at it. It was lively, dynamic and and brought all my old vinyl to life.  It was better than any other Rega arm or Rega-based arm I'd ever heard and made me realise just what an original gem the Rega RB250 arm was warts and all (the Tecnoarm being a fully modded RB250).

The PU7 had been on the radar for quite a while.  It seemed that it was universally appraised as a brilliant piece of engineering that had taken the legendary Syrinx tonearms beyond even their ultimate conclusion. But I had thought that replacing the Tecnoarm would amount to little more than a refined tweak that would give me a ounce more of sophistication.

I was firmly convinced that the PU7 would be a one-way ticket to the land of diminishing returns - a place that I had always wished to avoid.  I was wrong.  The PU7 wasn't a tweak.  It was the most brilliant upgrade I've ever made to my system.  Trying to find the words to describe what the PU7 does is very difficult. It really needs to be listened to.  In a nutshell there is more music, more detail and what struck me as most remarkable of all - more sound staging. I though the clarity and the detail of the Tecnoarm was exceptional.  Compared to the PU7, the Tecnoarm sounds muddy around the edges; overly warm, and has a more closed-in sound stage.

The PU7 just seems to get everything right, but the thing that hits you about it, really hits you right from the start, is the bass end.  It is there in abundance (even on my full range speakers which are a little bass poor) and it is solid and clear, and has real life and energy to it.  Which brings me back to Peter Tosh's "Bush Doctor".   The bass on a reggae record is notoriously hard to accurately reproduce. Most vinyl playback systems tend to over-emphasise the bass rhythm in reggae, often turning it into a fat low end blancmange, while CD playback just seems to suck the life out of it. With the PU7 reggae has never sounded as good; the bass sounds alive, it sits in its proper place, driving the music forward but not dominating the rest of the sound. 

But that's just one example of how good the PU7 is.  It doesn't matter what LP you pull out of your collection - it will sound so much better than you have ever heard it before.

For the Rega owners out there who have been thinking of upgrading to a better turntable, my recommendation would be to upgrade to a PU7 first.  Audio Origami can make the the PU7 as a direct replacement for a Rega arm.   One other thing that springs to mind is that if you ever thought about upgrading a standard Rega arm to a Michell Tecnoarm then it is certainly worth it, but a better option would be to save some extra money and go for the PU7.

I dealt with Mendo, the Audio Origami Australian representative.  Here's the link to the website. Both he and Johhnie in Scotland were a please to deal with. Johhnie's the genius who designs and builds the PU7.






 




  

Where has all the mid-range gone? Empire cartridges again!

This little box of magic arrived in the mail today. It is a fully boxed brand new Empire 2000E/III catridge with its original needle.  I haven't played it as I'm testing out after market styluses on another 2000E/III.  One step at a time, I tell myself.  Listen, understand and get it right. 

So moving onto the topic: "Where has all the mid-range gone?"  When you listen to an Empire for the very first time that is a question that will pop into a lot people's head.  "I can't hear the mid-range that I'm used to. Where has it gone?"  The quick answer is that it's still there but is now separated to such an extent that the warm mid-range you were used to has now gone.  It wasn't really there in the first place.  What people were hearing were unshielded cartridges that were great at hitting the upper and lower end of the frequency range, but in the middle sounded warm, due to lack of separation and adding external interference. I admit that these types of cartridges sound very comfortable.  The Grado Gold does this better than any other cartridge I have ever heard, and I love it because it is so good at doing what it does. 

The Empires don't do comfortable.  Any Empire that's labelled with the 2000 tag doesn't create a comforting sound.  But instead they reproduce the music the way it was meant to be.

They are totally remarkable cartridges. 

In Praise of the Empires - Empire 2000/S and Empire 2000E/III

Browse enough internet audio forums and sooner or later you are bound to come across a discussion about the old Empire moving magnet cartridges that were manufactured by the Empire Scientific Corporation in New York a long, long time ago. Often someone has picked up a second hand turntable that came with am Empire and they seeking help to find  new stylus for it. The surprising about these discussions is that nobody has a bad word to say about them. Comments range from "they're good" to "they're exceptional." A quick check of Ebay reinforces these views with some models of old Empire carts minus their stylus fetching tidy sums.

Intrigued by this, I recently purchased an Empire 2000/S from a seller in Canada. It was new old stock (NOS) and came in its original packaging, including a lovely black velvet gift box. Out of its box, the Empire 2000/S is a rather ungainly and ugly beast.

It  has a grey metal body and an odd black removable frame that allows it to be secured to the tonearm. Although, it has very little plastic in its consrtuction it looks  cheaply made.  Its specifications, however, are anything but cheap. The frequency response is 10-35,000Hz; it has a 0.2 x 0.7 elliptical nude diamond; and 30db channel separation. Still it did look like the mounting frame was inadvertently designed to capture resonance, vibrate like crazy and totally stuff up the tracking. The phrase "O ye of little faith" springs to mind. While it's not the easiest cartridge to mount - needs small screws and 3 hands - it is fairly straightforward to align once mounted.  As soon as the needle dropped into the groove, I knew this was something special.

The sound of music this thing reproduces is exceptional. There is a huge amount of detail, its incredibly well-balanced in the sense that there appears to be no over-emphasis of any of the frequencies. Bass, mid-range and top-end are all so smoothly working together. Sounds good? It is even better. Without a doubt this cartridge delivers one of the most 3D music sounds I have ever heard. Thanks to its channel separation, the stereo imaging and layering and positioning of vocals and musical instruments is simply superb.

A little bit of research revealed that there were a number of cartridges in the Empire 2000 series. Some further research revealed that there were in fact several different 2000 series produced by Empire. It was one of those companies that often used similar number series for different product lines several years apart. As well as the 2000/S, there was also a 2000X and a 2000Z.  And thanks to Mantra Audio in the UK I also managed to track down some information about a 2000 - 4000 series Empire produce.  In this series, 2000 designated the stereo cartridges and 4000 the quadraphonic cartridges. The specifications can be found here. The cartridges in this series all have gold-plated bodies. The 2000E/III was the top of the line of the stereo carts. It has a frequency response of 5-35,000Hz; channel separation of 35db and another nude 0.2 x 07 elliptical diamond stylus.

Pictured here, mounted on my Michell Tecnoarm, is a secondhand 2000E/III which I purchased on Ebay for $65. It shipped with a NOS Empire spherical stylus, not its original elliptical.  Yet still the sound was beautiful, revealing what great potential this cartridge had.  I have since replaced the spherical stylus with a reproduction of the original elliptical made by the famous Jico company in Japan. The level of detail revealed is quite staggering, once again the stereo imaging is exceptional.  While the 2000/S is one of the best cartridges I have heard, the 2000E/III with a greater channel separation and better bass response may just be the best I have heard.

It is certainly superior to a $600 current production cartridge made by a very famous brand; and its also threatening to best some of my beloved Denon MC cartridges, including a very nice Soundsmith rebuild.

Both these cartridges are simply stunning. The E/III has a slight edge over the 2000/S, but this may change over time as the 2000/S burns in. 




For the record, both cartridges were tested with a Graham Slee Genera, and the excellent performance I heard could well be because the Genera is a perfect match for these beautiful old cartridges, 

Edited June 2024: Great to see that this blog post is still serving as a reference for Empire metal body cartridges. I received a request for tracking force for the 2000/S, See images of specs below: 

The McChanson "Black Knight" Push-Pull Amplifier - A Sweet and Powerful 25 Watts Per Cahnnel

This is the lastest release from McChanson, a small one-man company run by valve guru Eric Chan in Sydney.  McChanson has long had a following among local musicians for his guitar and local stereophiles for his SET 300B and 6L6GC amplifiers.  His Push-Pull is a new creation,  inspired by Eric's desire to deliver a higher powered amplifier for those customers who just haven't got the speakers to work with SET. 

Eric describes this as his Super marzEt, the "super" designating that it pumps more power than marzE or marzEt which are both SET.  Typically, the best you can get from SET is around 5 watts, but the McChanson Push-Pull does 25 watts per channel. It is a dual mono block configuration combined in  a single chassis and using a single power transformer to maintain value for money.  Interstage transformers are for the coupling stage.  It has an external bias setting and, as with all of the McChanson 6L6GC amplifiers, there are a whole range of power valves you can swap into it, KT88s, EL34s being the most obvious ones.  But I am pretty sure it would also take a valve as obscure as the 250B. 

I haven't had the opportunity to hear this new addition of the McChanson line-up.  Like all of the McChanson amplifiers it is custom made when an order is placed and Eric works closely with the customer to ensure that he is delivering what they want.  The amplifier pictured was made for a customer in Tasmania.  When I contacted him for a comments on its performance he emailed me the following:


"The McChanson amp (the Black Knight) is just great, warm and sweet. The power of the meagre 25 watts is HUGE and I just can’t play it any louder than 1/3 volume which is too loud. It grips the music with so much gusto and clarity it just makes me grin from ear to ear, it’s scarily good..." 

Eric can be contacted through his McChanson Ebay store.

Launch of the Aurealis R1 Interconnect

I have been making my own stereo interconnects for the last 5 years. This included trying out variety of different wires, designs and RCA connectors. Recently, however, I decided to take this a step further. For the last 3 months I have been experimenting with a number of different designs using the famous Eichmann bullet RCAs and ultra pure Neotech Teflon coated wire. The results have been way beyond what I expected, and I have now decided to commercialise the best value for money design. In fact, it sounds as good as the other designs I tried but costs less to make. I tried various braiding techniques, various gauges of wire, silver and copper wire and heavier shielding. But the Aurealis R1 which is the most minimalist design I tried still produced excellent sonic results. 

The interconnect uses 3 strands of the solid-core 7N Neotech Teflon coated wire, 20 awg copper, 24 awg copper and 28 awg silver, terminated in the Eichmann copper bullets. A loose twist of the signal wires and the signal and return paths is used to provide basic shielding against unwanted radio frequencies (RF). 

Here's a few interesting things I found out while testing out the various designs: 

•  using more silver wire in the design didn't noticeably improve the sound. Effectively, the Eichmann copper bullets, as good as they are, limited any improvement you would get using more silver in the signal or return paths. My intention is to switch to Eichmann silver bullets for a silver wire series of the same interconnects. 
• adding more shielding added nothing to the performance; if anything it slightly dulled the edges of the music. I live in a high RF environment and a simple twist of the wires was sufficient shielding. 
• while a lot of people would argue that 20awg is unnecessary in interconnects, there was a noticeable improvement in the bass response when it was used in the design. Bass was more prominent and precise.  Similarly, despite the limiting aspects of the Eichmann copper bullets with silver wire, a think strand of Neotech silver (either 30 awg or 28 awg) did give a nice sparkle to the upper end.  The whole combination produces excellent clarity across the mid-range
• not all silver solders are the same.  I tried out 3 and found that Mundorf (3.8% silver) was the best. Its melt, flow and bonding was much better than the others I tried. 

  For the packaging, I went with an approach that I felt was in keeping with the do-it-yourself (DIY) origins of the interconnects which I summed up by the term "homebrewed". The appropriation of the iconic album cover "The Who Live at Leeds"will be obvious. Thanks to online shopping, the bags, boxes and printing stamps where all readily available once I had the design concept worked out. It's been a lot of fun and a great learning experience, and I am hoping I can sell as many of these as I'm able to make. The Aurealis R1 interconnects are available from my Ebay store Audio Turntable Accessories. The introductory price is AUD$99.95.

GuiGuang's Beautiful Blue El34s

Intrepid valve explorer, Vanch Carroll, has returned from another journey to China with something new out of the GuiGuang factory. Beautiful Blue EL34s.

I haven't heard them yet, but in the meantime I am listening to the fabulous GuiGuang black glass 300B which Vanch brought back from a previous trip. They are the most wonderful valves I have ever heard. They have this beautiful hard edge on them that is so unlike Chinese valves I have heard before. There is no smear, clarity is stunning the tone is pure beauty.

GuiGuang have also being trying to reproduce the legendary Western Electric 300B. Vanch reports that GuiGuang's production has slowed on this valve. GuiGuang is having problems with sourcing all the ingredients they need to make it work. Must admit that I admire this company. They are really taking it to the market, and clearly will not release valves unless they believe they have it right.

You can buy the GuiGuang EL34s from Vanch on Ebay:

PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC- A User's Experience of Creating "The" Music Server

The diabolical and extraordinary Melbourne writer, Paul Haines, is also a digital closet audiophile. He's just "come out" and published his experiences with the brilliant and expensive PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC and the PS Audio Perfect Wave Bridge which allows the DAC to work as a music server. Paul Haines, being the great dude he is, has given me permission to republish his experiences on "Adventures in HiFi". So here we go.

Paul writes:

For those who know me well, you will know that I am heavily into music. Can't play an instrument to save myself, although I used to be very good at playing the penis. There are some who know me that may equate 'heavily' with 'obsessed'. It's probably true, it is my biggest passion in life.

Several months ago I became interested in the concept of the Music Server as several audiophile technologies started to hit the home market. Now this whole area is still in fledgling days, as the audiophile geek now has to shake hands with the computer/network geek and normally these two geeks haven't been seen in the same shop, most damningly behind the counter trying to sell you Music Server technology. My experience with it all so far is the audio retailer really doesn't have much of a fucking clue about what all the music geeks are doing with MP3/FLAC and other compressed/lossless formats on their pcs.

Though the sales pitches delivered promise this is no longer the case. But it is.

So I started ripping my cd collection on the 14 June 2011. I have now offically, as of right now, finished ripping my collection on the 2 November 2011. Four and a half months. A labour of love. An incredibly boring task, though a task that I have been able to do as I am home every day, and even as debilitated as I have been over the last few months, a task I can actually perform successfully.

On the 26 June 2011 I purchased an 8TB RAID-enabled USB 3.0 external harddrive and a fancy router that could support it and make it look like a NAS-drive. Oh, the technical glitterati! Don't worry, I hate all that shit as much as you do. And then found out that Windows XP can't read that big a volume on a drive, so I had to remove two of the drives, then I eventually managed to format and configure a 4TB RAID-enabled drive. What that means is I have 2TB of storage, while the other 2TB is automatically used to back up the data. I'd hate to have to spend another 4.5 months ripping the collection in case of drive failure.

I originally started ripping as WAV (the format of a CD) but found I couldn't tag them (assign band, album, year of release etc like MP3 files can) so I converted them to FLAC instead (a file lossless audio codec) which is a compressed version of the cd, but if you have the right software or hardware, it can played decompressed at runtime and is exactly the same quality as the WAV. And FLACs are roughly a 1/3 of the size of a WAV so my 2TB of storage would now comfortably fit my collection ripped to FLAC. (WAV would have been to big). Why did I not go MP3 as I could fit heaps more on? Because MP3 is the death of music, folks. Avoid if you like music, avoid if you want to be kind to your ears.

So my Music Server consists of a massive external hardrive hooked up to my network (ie router/modem/internet) and a piece of black stereo equipment called a DAC (Digital to Analog Converter). The DAC spends its time trying to make the sound of your music as fantastic as possible and is often a piece of equipment installed between a cd player and an amplifier. Basically, it's trying to make the cd sound as deep and warm and smooth as vinyl. I'm using a PS Audio Perfect Wave, which acts as a normal DAC, until you put the Bridge inside it and hook that up to your network so it can see your external harddrive. The Bridge is really a glorified sound card for a pc/mac, but that's probably doing it a huge disservice. Together the DAC/Bridge combination sounds magical.

So why a Music Server? Plenty of reasons.

1) It Sounds Better
A CD spins in a CD player, and the majority of magic inside a CD player is trying to correct any errors that arise from this spin - it's called jitter. Take away the jitter, it sounds better. Stick it on a harddrive, no spin, read the file, and spend the majority of the magic in making the file sound like magic, instead of trying to remove the shit that jitter introduces.

2) It Sounds Even Better
Now that the limitation of CD has been removed, in particular how much info a CD can hold (about 700MB right?) you can have much more depth of information delivered in the sound file. A CD, for example, uses 44.1khz as its sampling rate, so often there is a loss of dynamic range on a cd (ie the loud bits vs the quiet bits - and these days most CDs just try to be loud, and if it is all loud? Well, there is no loud or quiet, is there?). But the sound files can come in higher resolutions, so instead of 44.1 you can have it as 192. What does this mean? You can hear heaps more in the music you couldn't before. Files get pretty large though. CD file size now equates to DVD file size.

3) My wife is extremely happy that I don't have wobbling stacks of CDs littering the lounge anymore. And I had stacks. And stacks. Our house appears to be neater without my mess. This was the major selling point for my wife to allow me to pursue this. She can now hear Reasons (1) and (2) now though.

The solution is not without its fair share of frustrations though.
1) I had to buy an iPod touch to use as my remote control because PS Audio don't ship the DAC with one to access your music collection with. That pissed me off. It should come free with the DAC as it costs enough.

2) You also have to buy an app for the iPod - PS Audio's version of iTunes. It's as buggy and unstable as all fuck. That pissed me off. It should also be free.

3) The Apple device (iPod) and the non-Apple device (my pc-networked harddrive) often have synchronisation issues, particulalry if I start copying files to the harddrive and still want to listen to my music. The iPod app drops out all the time when this happens and you can no longer access your music collection. It is more than a little frustrating as it can be out of action for an hour or two. It pisses me off still. Though now that I have finished ripping the collection, this will largely be an issue of the past. And my CD player is a backup to that problem (and it is also hooked up to the DAC too).

4) It doesn't play Gapless. Gapless? What the fuck is that? Yes, Mr Retail Audiophile man, who laughed at me when I asked him whether said gear could do this, and then blustered his way through the "it just does it" because he had no fucking idea of what I was talking about. Think of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon". Side One is pretty much a continuous piece of music, though it is made up of several songs. When you play the album you hear each song, but you hear it all in one big track. The Perfect Wave loads each song as it goes and cannot do it fast enough so there is a discernable break in the sound, sometimes up to several seconds between each song. It's very jarring. It pisses me off. The solution was sold to me after being stated that it could do gapless. It can't. So for those who like electronic music, or progressive rock, or classical, or, fuck, you name it, as half of my collection NEEDS gapless playback due to the sequencing and transitions required of the music on said fucking album, it can be rather annoying.

5) On those big lovely 192khz high resolution files, the Bridge can't always handle them, so microskips are introduced. On my system it's not so bad as it doesn't sound like a CD skipping, rather the beat has, for just a microsecond, skipped and change.

Points (4) and (5) are currently being addressed by having a PC/MAC hooked into the solution and running some software to do it. Though you don't really want a computer to hooked in as well, as it really needs to be standalone. And in another room so you can't hear it. And on. And chewing through more power than you'd like. PS Audio are also building a Silent Server/Magic Box which is a little black box that will fix those problems and it will plug inbetween the DAC/Bridge and the network. It should come free, but it won't. And that pisses me off.

Now, I normally avoid bleeding edge technology, but I am in a situation where I may not live long enough to see it mature and become stable, so I had to plunge in now and accept all the drawbacks and frustrations.

Apart from all that whinging, the system has me sitting back sometimes on the sofa, eyes closing, smile on lips, and sounds amazing. It makes you want to sit there and listen to music.

Well, who'd a thought I was also such a music/tech geek and an audiophile snob to boot? I'm not much of one really, as any real techie could probably tear apart half of my explanations but I've tried to make it simple enough so that it can be understood by people who just don't care about any of this. Those same people who didn't read past the first paragraph.


Paul Haines blog is at Paul Haines Live Journal.

Paul Haines's brilliant collection of short stories "Slice of Life" can be purchased internationally from Morrigan Books, and in Australia from the Mayne Press.

Margule's Audio from Mexico- The Magenta ADE 24.1

This is a wonderful black box from Mexico that turns CD into something it should have always sounded like. It works on the analogue feed out of any DAC, the one inside your CD player or the outboard one that cost $1000. Julian Margules who created the product would be the first to say that it wasn't designed to work with a $3000 to $4000 DAC, but for everything else we are talking about a very special product. It makes CD sound beautiful. And this is saying something for a guy who loves his vinyl.

Barry Willis recently wrote an article for Hifi News in the UK praising the Margenta ADE 24.1. It's in the November 2011 issue , which goes from October to November and is out now. It has generated lots of interest and some reckless controversy. But some more of that later.

I first came across Margule Audio and the Magenta ADE 24.1 when I bought PS Audio Digital Link III DAC on the secondhand market. A quick Google to find reviews about it got me this review by Barry Willis:

http://www.avguide.com/review/ps-audio-digital-link-iii-trio-p-200-preamplifier-and-trio-100-amplifier

Some people screamed at the time that he didn't really review the PS Audio DAC so much as promote the ADE 24. I read that article in a different way. Here was a combination of components that would make your digital system sound better.

To cut a long story short, I have the Magenta ADE 24.1 in my systen combined with the PS Audio Digital Link III DAC and the combination is exceptional just as Barry Willis has described.

GuiGuang Are At It Again - Western Electric Replicas

Vanch Carroll, intrepid valve explorer that he is, recently alerted me to the fact the GuiGuang are producing their own replica of the famous Western Electric 300B. This is hot on the heels of GuiGuang developing their own black glass 300B to rival the ShuGuang treasure series.
Having purchased a pair of GuiGuang's black glass 300BS-Z from Vanch, I queried him on whether the Western Electric replica was just an idea or a reality. His response was that it is a reality and he sent pictures to prove it. So here they are on Vanch Carroll's dining room table, direct from the GuiGuang factory in China. When I asked Vanch what they sounded like he simply responded: "More. More of everything."

As far as I know neither of these valves have been released onto the open market as yet. Vanch has the black glass 300BS-Z for sale on Ebay. They are beautiful valves.

And if you are really hanging out to hear what GuiGuangs WE replica can do, then you may need to catch a plane to China and visit the GuiGuang factory like Vanch did.

The Frugel Horn Project

I've been a fan of full-range speakers for several years now, having completed the Madisound build for the Fostex 6.5" FF165k driver and another build for the Fostex 4.5" FE126e - both of which I thought sounded just wonderful, especially the purity of the mid-range. During this time, I have followed the amazing design work that has been going on over the Frugel Horn Project site. One of the aims of that project was to produce a well-designed, but simple flat-pack that could 1) be built by just about anybody with a couple of sets of clamps and clue, 2) didn't cost a fortune in wood, and 3) really let full-range drivers demonstrate why they are just so, so good.

Given the beautiful complexity of the designs the Frugel Horn Project have showcased over the years, I had some doubts they would ever get a such a solution. But they did, and the pictures with this post show my own build of the Frugel Horn Project's flat-pack. It's different to the other full-range cabinet builds I have done. Firstly, it's a rear firing horn rather than front firing, and secondly it was much easier to build.

But there is a third thing that makes this design different, and so special. It was developed by a bunch of highly skilled enthusiasts and like all enthusiasts they aren't necessarily in it for the money; they want others to get to hear just how good full-range speakers are. To that end, they have effectively made the design open source, with some small copyright acknowledgements required, and are encouraging people everywhere, who have the required equipment, to produce the cabinets locally for sale.

In Australia, this is being done by Ben Arends in Geelong, Victoria. Check out his Sound with Style website for further details. Ben is selling the cabinets for $299 inclusive of shipping in Australia, and he will CNC machine the panels to match just about any 4.5" full-range speaker available.

I completed my build with Fostex 4.5" FE126EN drivers, which replace the older 126E models, Neotech Teflon coated 20AWG 7N solid core UPOCC copper wiring, and Eichmann cable pods. I tried to source as much as I could from Australian suppliers to finish the build. In the case of the Neotech wire, yes, it's made in Taiwain, but I sourced that from myself as I sell it in Australia. The Eichmann cables pods are from ETI Technologies, designed and made in Brisbane (and they are brilliant).

Sadly, it didn't work out with sourcing the FE126EN drivers in Australia. I was quoted a price close to $170, including shipping for a pair, which I was willing to pay, but a waiting time of nearly six weeks, which I thought was pretty ordinary. Instead I bought them from Madisound for $148 including shipping and received them within a week. Ah, Australian retail when will you guys get your act together?

And what do they sound like? Sadly, I'll need to leave that for another post, but suffice to say for the prices involved in making these speakers, nobody could be disappointed, and most people should be damned excited, because that is exactly the sound they deliver. Exciting, and also as clear and as transparent anything.

The High Price of the Michell Tecnoarm in Australia

I use a Michell Tecnoarm on my modded Rega P3 turntable. It's a beautiful arm, performs wonderfully and looks great. I purchased mine from Trichord Research in the UK about five years ago. At the time the retail cost was $1,299 in Australia and the total cost to buy from the UK was around $700. Thats a huge difference in price and only a small amount of it can be justified by additional shipping costs. Somebody, somewhere must be making a huge profit.

Now I would have expected, with the exchange rate for the Australian dollar being so good and the ongoing squealing from Australian retailers that online stores overseas are killing them, that we may have seen the price of the Tecnoarm become more competitive. But no, it's recommended retail price is still $1,299. A quick Google search shows that this is pretty much a universal price across Australian retailers. Now to be fair if we take GST out of the equation that price drops to $1180. Also to be fair the price in the UK, has now risen to £457.50 ex vat, or $693.15. To be even fairer lets say it costs $50 postage for the Tecnoarm to be delivered from the UK to Australia. So the total cost to buy from the UK today is $743.15. That is still a price difference of $436.85.

Why? There is no import duty on tonearms, so the reason has either got to be that retail selling in Australia costs much more than it does in the UK, or profit margins on much Audio gear sold in Australia are excessive. I have doubts too that excessive profit margins are all going into the pockets of the retailers. The Australian distributor of Michell Tecnoarms is Amber Technologies. Amber Tech is a large company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. It distributes home and professional audio visual equipment. In the case of the Michelle Tecnoarm it has sole distribution rights, which means that Australian retailers can only buy from them and are unable to seek alternative and cheaper distribution from overseas. It also means that Amber Tech can set the retail price and then sell at a discount from the retail price to the retailers. This allows the retails to make a profit, but there is nowhere in this equation that allows for competitive price setting. Hence the price in Australia is $1,299 and that's it.

Little wonder that many people will be buying directly from the UK.

GuiGuang Black Glass 300BS-Z

With the McChanson 300B amp up and running again, I've been pretty much lost in listening to the music it makes. The McChanson 300B (designated marzEt by its maker) is truly an exquisite amplifier for the price Eric charges. I think he could charge three times as much as he does and the buyer would still be totally satisfied.

Even better has been the opportunity to get the GuiGuang Black Glass 300BS-Z fully "burnt in" and hear what they can really do. They are exquisite valves: open, spacious and every instrument sounding clear, dynamic and exactly where it should be in the soundstage. Unlike some other Chinese valves I have heard in the past there is no sense with the GuiGuangs of the "full bloom" or what could be called a warm tone being added to the music. These guys are sharp and totally refined in their sound presentation.

As far as I know GuiGuang still hasn't released these on the retail market, but are letting a few out via direct factory sales. Possibly to see what reaction they get before they go in to full production? I bought my pair from my-hi-fi on Ebay Australia. The seller contacted me last night and advised that GuiGuang had shipped him several more pairs. You can check out the sale here.

The McChanson 300B marzEtT - O, woe is me, as Ophelia said

The legendary Vanch Carroll once told me that "tube amps can be an adventure or a horror story sometimes too." How right he was. There I was playing this beautiful 300B valve amp with the wonderful GuiGuang 300BS-Z valves in them and enjoying every minute of it. Detailed music, atmospheric, sound stage incredible, high end sparkling, mid range clear as a bell and bass solid and prominent. No fat flabby bass here, thank you.

Now for my budget system it doesn't get any better than this, but I did something stupid. I realised that I was supposed to be writing a review of how good the new McChanson was, and all I was doing was wallowing in the pleasure of one set of valves. Yes, the GuiGuang 300BS-Z had captured me and I had gone off into musical La-La land, which is actually a nice place to be. But then a devil pops up on my shoulder and reminds me that I am supposed to be listening to several other pairs of 300Bs as well. That was where I did something stupid. I listened to the devil.

So out come the GuiGuangs and in go a pair of Winged Cs. I love Winged Cs from St Petersburg in Russia, mostly they make such great valves. But this time one of them was bad. The 300B in the left channel flared inside soon as I powered up, and this was followed by a flare from the socket. Fortunately, that was it and after all the fireworks the valve just sat there smoking, even after I turned the power off.

The end result was that I blew the left channel. Even with a good valve there was no sound. Got back to Eric Chan, the maker, and he gave me a series of diagnostic tests to run on the circuit. There could have been much damage to the amp, but it turns out that one of the main resistors acted like a fuse and burnt out when it was overloaded. So all I need to do is get a new resistor and solder it in.

Eric really is amazing. He makes beautiful amplifiers and the support he provides is incredible. He's also a very nice person with bucket loads of knowledge.

Amperex Bugle Boy 6CM4

Have just been trying these little gems out as driver tubes in the McChanson 6L6 marzE. It's only recently that I realised 6CM4 valves were equivalent to EC86s. These drive very very well and would have been in my top list when I did the EC86 shootout if I had them at the time. I expect they may be quite difficult to find, but if you come across a pair I don 't think you'll be disappointed.

GuiGuang 300BS Z Black Glass - Super Tube

These are the 4th set of 300B tubes that I picked up for my new McChanson 300B amplifier. You may be tempted like I was when I first saw them for sale on Australian Ebay to ask: "What the hell are they?" Well like the title of this post says they GuiGuang 300BS Z Black Glass Super Tubes and they are fresh from the factory. GuiGuang it seems are taking up the challenge to match the highly acclaimed Shuguang Treasure Series

The GuiGuang Black Glass are so new that if you google for them, chances are you will only find the current Ebay sale for them. You can even check the factory site Foshan Nanhai GuiGuang Tube Factory and you won't find them listed there. They are that new.

No reviews, no information at all on these tubes, only the seller seems to know about them, so who would buy them? I did. Being new to 300B and wanting a decent selection of valves to really test out the McChanson I was looking for a bargain, and these were a bargain. They only arrived 2 days ago and I couldn't resist putting them in. I have played them for 6 hours and they are beautiful. They have the typical 300B sound, but compared to the other valves I have been trying out (GuiGuang clear glass, Electro Harmonix and Svetlana Winged Cs) the sound is bigger, and more expansive, with the top end really twinkling and a bass you can feel.

Admittedly it is early days yet, I haven't burnt all the tubes fully in, nor the amp, but if the earlier indications are anything GuiGuang has a got a real winner here.

As far as I know the only place you will be able to get a pair of these right now is from my-hi-fi on Australian Ebay.

The McChanson 300B SET amplifier

About 3 weeks ago I took delivery of my second McChanson amplifier. It's beautiful, isn't it? Look at all those transformers - more iron less glass as Eric says. I have been so impressed over the last 18 months with the 6L6 amplifier Eric Chan built for me that I decided earlier this year that I would venture into the mysterious world of the legendary 300B.

It's early days yet, but it's impressive, very impressive indeed. Big sound stage, great bass and a detailed upper end. Lots of burn in to be done, with the amp, and also the 4 sets of 300Bs I have purchased over the last 6 months in anticipation of the amp finally arriving. I'll be eventually writing up my experiences after a lot more playing.

Check out the McChanson amplifiers on Ebay.