Denon DL301 MKII

I was going to write-up a review of the Denon cartridge DL301 MKII, but then stumbled across this one by Ferrari at Audiogon: Review: Denon 301 MK II Cartridge


It's a great review of the cartridge and matches my views perfectly. Interesting that it's close to the legendary DL103D sound. That's a Denon cartridge I've read a lot about but have never had the pleasure to hear. Anyway if you are interested in this cartridge read Ferrari's review. It is enthusiastic and balanced at the same time.

Battle of the EC86 Tubes / Valves

My McChanson marzE SET amplifier uses EC86s at its driver stage. Recently, thanks to Eric Chan, the maker of the amp, I was able to audition a range of EC86 and Russian equivalents.

The EC86s inluded a number of well-known brands: Lorenz, Valvo, Telefunken, Siemens-Rohre; and a couple of lesser ones: Hoges and Magnadyne.

The Russian valves were ex-military and designated as 6S3P-EV and 6S3P-DR. The DR has some special features compared to the EV (notably the presence of a gold grid) and is reputed to last up to 10,000 hours.

The parameters I used in the listening tests I did were very subjective but pretty straightforward. The subjectivity comes in because I only used my own ears to listen to the performance of each pair, so really it's just my opinion based on how good or bad my ears might be. In terms of sound reproduction I was looking for how well each of the different drivers handle bass and high end, clarity across the mid-range and the extent to which they added any colour to the sound.

In my current configuration of the marzE, I use EC86s to drive Winged C SED 6L6GCs. The amp allows for pentode or triode mode and I kept it in triode mode for the auditioning. The amp also uses a 5AR4 / GZ34 rectifier and I have a NOS Mullard loaded at that stage.

I was already very familiar with 6S3P-EV as my version of the marzE shipped with these. They are very good valves that excel at delivering clarity on recordings that are centred around the human voice. The high end is good and the bass end is fine. They did not add any colouration or warmth to the sound as far as I could tell.

The other valve I was already familiar with was the Telefunken EC86. Sadly these valves have never performed well. They add huge amounts of colour to the sound and while it is pleasant, warm and cosy even, it really was not a sound that I liked. Overall I thought their whole dynamic was rather limp compared to the others and if it had been a race, the Telefunkens well and truly ran last.

Valvos I had playing in the system before Eric threw some extra EC86s into the mix. The Valvos are bold. They are gutsy, clear and have a great bass end. Upper range is decent. At this stage they were the preferred EC86s.

Okay onto Eric's valves now:

The Hoges -- I loved these on first hearing and over several more hours of play. Great clarity and such a sweet upper range (possibly the best so far). At first I thought the bass was okay, but on switching back to the Valvos and 6S3P-EVs, I realised that the bass was actually quite lacking with these guys. But nice valves if you don't need much bass. I do, so the Valvos were still the preferred one.

Next came the Lorenz. Big name and big reputation. But they just struck me as lack lustre. They didn't do anything wrong, but there was simply nothing about their sound that impressed me at all. Bass, clarity and high end could all be beaten by others. Just a good average all rounder in my opinion.

Russian 6S3P-DR (the guy with the gold grid). This was the first one that I listened to that gave me goose bumps. What a brilliant driver valve for the 6L6GC Winged Cs. The clarity it produces is exceptional, especially on the human voice, and bass and high end just blend perfectly with the mid-range. A big improvement on their little brother, the 6S3P-EV.

After the 6S3P-DR, the Siemens-Rohre EC86s had a hard task. On the first listen I thought they were very good, ahead of most of the others I had heard, but lacked what the 6S3P-DR had to offer; the clarity, the wonderful wonderful clarity. A few days later, I moved on to the last one, thinking that the 6S3P-DR, with that magic gold grid (which you cannot see BTW) was the clear winner.

The Magnadynes were the last I put in, and as soon as they fired up and the music played I knew we were in goosebump territory again. I had another clear winner.

In the end three valves went into the final shoot-out. The Magnadynes, the Russian 6S3P-DR, and the Siemens-Rohre. The latter was placed back into the mix because it was clearly ahead of the rest of the field, and I did feel I hadn't given it much of a chance by playing it directly after the 6S3P-DR. For a week or so I listened to these valves against each other and came to the conclusion that all three were exceptional performers. And I did occasionally put the end of the field contenders in just to make sure that I wasn't making it all up, but every time the Lorenz went back in, and the others, it was the same result. Magnadyne, 6S3P-DR, and Siemens-Rohre were clearly way ahead.

If I was asked to give a clear winner then that would go to the 6S3P-DR, based on two things: amazing clarity and when it's available its very cheap. This is not to say that Magnadyne or Siemens-Rohre are not exceptional. They have a certain element of magic that the 6S3P-DR may not have. Perhaps the 6S3P-DR, at times, is just a little too focused on clarity and occasionally the other two top contenders get the music better.

Some caveats: I have already stated that this was a very subjective review of the range of EC86s that are around. That is, my ears only. But there are other issues as well. All valves are new old stock (NOS as it is known) but I had no way of knowing whether any of the valves had been too long on the shelf and whether any deterioration had occurred. A physical examination suggested not, but that's not a great way of determining any changes in the metal components over the years. Also there is the question of burn in period. Would some of the valves I sent to the end of field have performed better than my best three if they had burned in longer? I suspect not, but it might be possible.

A final factor that worries me is that of valve matching. Since I did the EC86 tests, my more recent experience has shown that some drivers work better with certain power tubes, and others don't.

So at the end of all this I can only happily conclude that EC86 6S3P-DRs, Magnadynes, and Siemens-Rohre are exceptional driver valves for SED 6L6GC Winged Cs (the lovely ones made in St Petersburg).

Grado Prestige Series - In Praise of the Little Blue Rock God

Up until three days ago I had never heard a Grado cartridge, but I knew of their reputation. Check out any of the audio forums on the internet and you are bound to find a thread that is highly critical of Grado's Prestige series. They are cartridges that seem to split the audio community right down the middle. Fifty percent love them, fifty per cent hate them. Those that hate them complain of poor tracking, poor mid range response, lack of detail and next to no sound staging. Those that love them simply say they know how to handle a song, and play beautiful music.

Now with a reputation like that I just had to hear one. I decide to go for the Prestige Blue1. It's a cut above the Black/Green entry level and at US$110 was affordable.

There were two things that stood out about the specifications for the Blue1. Firstly, for a cartridge at this price it has an excellent frequency range: 10Hz - 55kHz. Secondly, it has a relatively high compliance compared to most other cartridges around these days. For example, on a relative scale a Denon DL103 has a compliance of 5, a Denon DL110 a compliance of 10, and the Grado Blue1 a compliance of 20. As a rule of thumb, what this means is that the Denon DL103 is more suited to a heavier tonearm and the Grado Blue1 more suited to a lighter tonearm. Getting the compliance match correct is one of the most important things to ensure that you get the best performance out of a cartridge.

With this in mind I decided to bypass my main Rega system, and mount the Blue 1 on my refurbished Dual 1219 idler wheel drive. This is one of the best turntables that Dual ever made and was the best choice for two reasons. The first being that the Duals have what are regarded as lightweight tonearms which seemed a perfect match for the Grado specs. The second, given that some people had reported tracking issues, was that it is very easy to correctly mount and align a cartridge in these old Duals. Really, as long as you can detect a parallel line with the naked eye when screwing the cartridge in, nothing more fiddly is required.

In terms of the rest of the system, the Dual 1219 runs into the fairly basic NAD PP2, then into the rather dynamic REDGUM Sonofa, which I have discussed elsewhere on this blog, then into Fostex 165K folded horns with Fostex super tweeters (FT17H.

Albums used for assessment were:

Are We A Warrior - Ijahman Levi
Uprising - Bob Marley
Sade - Lovers Rock
Led Zeppelin 4
Led Zeppelin 3
The Beatles For Sale
Let It Bleed - Rolling Stones
Through the Past Darkly - Rolling Stones
One on One - Bob James and Earl Klugh
Two of a Kind - Bob James and Earl Klugh
Feel the Warm - Cleo Laine
Strangers in the Night - Frank Sinatra

I approached the assessment with a pessimistic frame of mind. I was prepared to be disappointed. I hadn't listen to a moving magnet style cartridge in nearly two years and the last one that I wasted my money on (the soulless Audio Technica 440MLa with its squashed frequency range and CD-like dynamics) drove me firmly into the moving coil camp.

I was prepared to be disappointed, but right from the start I found myself pleasantly surprised. The Marley record was the first one and it was immediately obvious that the Blue1's stated frequency range was no exaggeration on the part of Grado. The bass came through solid and articulate - one of the best bass responses I have ever heard - and it was balanced extremely well at the higher end. Those higher frequencies just kept rising up before they disappeared. Yeah, but maybe the mid-range was a little ordinary. Still this was only the first side of one LP; the cartridge had hardly even warmed up, let alone burned in.

Cut to 10 hours of playing later, over a couple of days, and the cartridge is performing like a champion. It is excellent at rock and reggae, just superb. It seems to get into the music and capture the bass and rhythm section and then work its way up into the rest of the frequency range positioning all the instruments and vocals exactly where they should be. For the first time ever I heard a spaciousness around Jagger's vocals on Through the Past Darkly; heard what a great rhythm combination Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr were back in their early days; realised that Led Zeppelin 3 does in fact rock big time and Stairway to Heaven is an incredibly dynamic song and not the overblown piece of rubbish that I had always imagined it to be. The really big surprise was the Stones' Let It Bleed. I had long regarded this as one of their records full of good songs that was let down by a lousy recording. It came alive beneath the deft touch of the Grado Blue1. Jaggers vocals were clear and articulate, and there was sound stage in abundance. Again every instrument just seemed to be perfectly positioned and balanced. And on all these records there were dynamics firing all over the place. Soft passages were truly soft, loud passages were loud, and every now and then you would hear a piece of music rising out of the background to sit front and centre stage.

Okay, by now I was truly impressed and I decided to give it something harder. Out came the Bob James and Earl Klugh records. These records have been in the household for 20 years courtesy of my wife, and I have used them to test every single upgrade or change to my system I have made. To their own detriment they are quite unforgiving. On an ordinary system or a poor cartridge they sound toned-down and mellow, just one step away from elevator music. With a good system and a decent cartridge they burst right open and deliver wonderfully detailed jazz fusion that has terrific bass and a delicate and dynamic high end. For example, they sound spectacular on the Denon DL304, a $600 cartridge, carried by a Michell Tecnoarm on a Rega with an offboard PSU.

So I was sure that Bob and Earl were gonna get this upstart cartridge. They didn't. The Grado Blue1 got every inch of their two records perfectly, and was even a bit more revealing at the bass end than other cartridges I have heard.

Could nothing stop this guy? I am perversely pleased to say that Frank and Cleo came gunning for the Little Blue God and shot him down. The Sinatra and Laine records differ from the others in that both recordings are totally subservient to the presentation of the vocals. The music is, by and large, in the mid-range and has no other purpose than to give the singer a musical landscape upon which to demonstrate the talent of their voice and the interpretation of the songs. On a quality moving coil cartridge the nuances of their voices are clearly and fully captured. They may not actually be in the room (an old cliche) but they are certainly close by. The Blue1 just couldn't capture the nuances in the same way. I am tempted to say, that in the absence of a solid bass line to grab hold of, the cartridge may have been just a little confused. It wasn't bad, but its performance was just nowhere near as good as it had been with rock and reggae.

The Little Blue God excels at rock and reggae, and for the superb performance it delivers, it is impossible to argue with its price. Now I just need to get my hands on a Grado Gold.

I am pretty certain that the superior performance I got with the Blue1 compared to others comes down to the fact that I had a perfect tonearm match for it, and with the Dual headshell I was easily able to get the correct alignment. There was not a single tracking error on any of the records I used in this assessment.

One last word might be said about the legendary Grado hum. Comments about a hum from the cartridge, especially when matched with Regas, usually feature in most major criticisms of the Grado Prestige Series. Did I get a hum with the Dual 1219. Yep, the hum was obvious, but this was no great surprise as the Dual 1219 hums with most cartridges I have tried it with. The reason for this I have found is because it is internally earthed, and does not have an earth wire running back to the phono amp. In another Dual (1209) I decoupled the internal earthing and solder in a wire to run back to the phono amp. All hum problems were solved. I found out only recently that standard Rega arms are also internally earthed and I suspect this is why the Prestige Series hums with the Regas. There are instructions on the internet for how to externally earth a Rega tonearm.

Great Moments in Liner Note Writing: Sinatra's "Softly, As I Leave You "

Stan Cornyn had a big career with Warner Bros. Records. He was also one of the great liner note writers of all time. Now mostly I don't expect too much from the liner notes, and in these days days of CD, and its evil sibling MP3, I don't expect anything at all. But every now and then you come across a liner note that captures something special in its writing. Both in its style and the way it has captured an image of the musical artist embedded on the vinyl within. This is what Stan Cornyn wrote about Sinatra on the back of "Softly, As I Leave You".

"He walks into a recording session about half an hour after the orchestra has begun running down the songs. He looks smart, what your mother used to call 'natty'. His wide-banded hat is tipped back, one inch off straight flat. He doesn't come in with a fanfare. He's there though. He strolls through the studio obstacle course, the mike booms, the cable spaghetti, the music stands. Softly and with a grin he greets the musicians who've been working his sessions for years. "Hi ya, Sweets." "Evenin', Sunshine."

An "in" crowd of semi-invited guests sits against one wall, silent, their eyes on him as he moves across the studio floor. Watching him and waiting for their own personal grin.

He steps up into the singer's booth, a window behind him, a scrubbed up ashtray at his right hand. He gets behind the music stand; it has his name engraved on it. He takes a second to shuffle through the music, his piano player standing close by, in case. He shoots his cuffs, three-quarters of an inch. He came here to sing. He speaks straight into his mike, with a casual smile, deliberately easing the tension that surrounds his sessions.

"Everybody straight?"

From the other end of the room, from the soundproof control booth comes an anonymous, amplified, well-behaved voice: "Any time you're ready."

He hears that metallic voice from that booth again. "G, One Thousand Four Hundred and Sixty-Seven, Take One." Fifteen yards away, the arranger stands before his orchestra, arms up and out, waiting. A trumpeteer tucks a mute between his knees. A dropped mute means a blown take. A possible explosion. This is no time for nerves. This is pro time. The room is silent, the first moment it's been quiet enough to hear the fluorescent lights. The vacuum of silence is in everyone's ears.

His hands stuff into his pants pockets. His knees bend half an inch, like a tennis pro waiting for his opponent's best serve. He studies the microphone - friend or enemy? He fiddles with it, moving maybe a quarter of an inch closer. He balances on the balls of his feet, his eyes feeling their way through the already memorized poetry before him.

The arranger sets the tempo: "One...two, One...two...three..."

The drummer is the key. He seems too loud, but nobody says anything. Drummers are always loud at his dates. He wants it that way, a hangover from the dance band days a couple of decades back. Brass, reeds, rhythm, strings, chorus, all of them ticking off the bars to their next entrance.

The action is up at the solo mike. He leans into the words with deceptively casual grace. Like a high jumper when he's loping down the gravel path to the point of no return.

He sings. The words come out wise, and sure. The girl in the crowd, the one against the wall, forgets to wonder if he's noticed her. he's singing now. Everyone feels the groove of the rhythm. Thirty right feet silently tapping. The groove is there.

He is happening to a song.

Two minutes and forty seconds later. The studio waits for the ring of the last cymbal to die out. Morgue quiet. The fluorescent lights again.

He looks over the top of the music stand. For the first time he has a Lucky going. he leans into the mike with the boyish pride of a kid who's just made his first bike ride around the block no hands.

"Any questions?"

From the booth: "No questions."

"Groovy."

He drags on the Lucky, matter of factly. He steps out from behind the mike and moves to the conductor. The room unbends. The sideline semi-pros chatter softly, feeling proud as if they'd all just cleared the bar at six feet. The women sit up straighter. No matter what he says next, they'll all laugh. He always has a funny throw away when the first tune's in the can.

It looks easy."

I tip my hat to Mr Cornyn. It's an exceptional piece of writing. It transports you into that studio with Sinatra, as if you were sitting right next to Stan and seeing and hearing and judging everything as he did. It's also a character study of sorts. Sinatra cool, but perhaps a little edgy, and a touch arrogant too.

You can read more about Stan Cornyn at Wikipedia.

A Tale of Two Amps (Part 2) The Sonofa'GUM SG-5500

Like the McChanson SET, the REDGUM Sonofa is one of the best bang for buck amplifiers around at the moment, and when it comes to solid state it may just be the very best value on the market fullstop.

The name REDGUM should be better known than the name McChanson, but like McChanson, REDGUM is hardly the household name that Rega, NAD, Rotel, Denon, Technics, Sony, Yamaha etc have become. REDGUM are a small and specialised HiFi business operating on the outskirts of Melbourne (Australia). They do a a range of stereo gear, but their big speciality is amplifiers, and they produce an impressive range. From the Sonofa, which is their baby amp at AUD $699, right up to their AUD$19,000 monoblocks.

The Sonofa is the latest model added to their range and it departs from the usual REDGUM formula of "Made in Australia." REDGUM had the Sonofa made in China, so they could keep the prices down of what they see as being the introductory model to their range. Sonically, it's a REDGUM design, for sure, and they modify the units once they arrive back in Australia. Presumably to prevent the Chinese factories from producing grey label copies.

I don't need to give a long review here of how good this amplifier is. Michael O'Conner has already done that for Audio and Video Lifestyle magazine, and he knows how to talk about stereo gear better than I do. So I can only give you my personal experiences.

Out of the box, it's got weight and substance to it. It's an immaculate build and as Michael says in his review -- think Rotel. So you set it up and plug it in. It sounds good, really good, but it is also one of the most interesting sounding amplifiers I have ever heard. Hard to put a finger on. It's different, but a good different, and I'm thinking that maybe this is the REDGUM sound that gets talked about. But it will probably need burn in I say to myself. I have been so conscious of burn in since I started to upgrade my equipment and am constantly amazed at some professional reviewers who appear to review quality stereo equipment straight out of the box. What you hear today will always sound better tomorrow, unless of course it's a cheap, ordinary piece of gear. But that is not what we are talking about here.

Cut to three weeks later and the amplifier is fully burned in and and has been delivering exceptional music. There is clarity across the mid-range and the bass is exceptional, and the overall sound has a sharp definite punch to it. This is a powerful amplifier. It kicks and keeps the clarity at its 55 watts per channel. No distortion in sound whatsoever as you pump the volume.

Speaking to Lindy Gerber at REDGUM, she told me that she believed the amp would be great for somebody who wanted to replace one of their classic Japanese amps that was getting a bit long in the tooth. While I agree with her, kind of, I think she was being too generous, and maybe underselling the Sonofa. The Sonofa is a better and very different amplifier to the classic and reasonably priced Japanese amps that we all know and love so well. It has much better clarity across the mid-range, and its bass is sharp and tight. Not the more boomy bass which has always been a problem with the mid-market Japanese amps in my opinion, and something that has always sent me seeking alternatives. I like reggae and amps that boom the bass turn reggae into a mess. The Sonofa handles reggae beautifully, as it does everything else. I am tempted to say that it really excels with rock music, but some further listening is needed.

My own view about Sonofa is that it handles bass just so well, that it sounds more like a great Brit amp (I'm thinking QED) from the mid 90s, when reggae was big in the UK.

Is there anything else that I need to say? Maybe a couple of things. The burn in period of 2 to 3 weeks is really important if you only play vinyl. On CD it doesn't probably need so long, although after 3 weeks it starts to do soundstaging on CD really well, and I guess that does matter if you like CD.

This amp, like a valve amp, needs warm up. I believe this is because of the large toroid transformer (180VA) REDGUM use in all their gear (the same thing that is responsible for their big sound?). It needs five minutes to warm up in standby, and about 20 minutes if you have shut the amp completely down at any stage.

You can get this amp direct from the REDGUM site or try The Wizard on Ebay. Make him an offer like I did. The Wizard also has a link to the Michael O'Conner review I mentioned above.

The Soundsmith Denon 103 Rebuild

Every now and then you come across a piece of stereo equipment whose performance goes way beyond your expectations. Up until 3 weeks ago I had been using a Denon DL304 in my system and raving about its clarity and musical detail. I was pleased to see that my own experience of this cartridge was matched by just about every reviewer around.

I had bought the DL304 as a step up from my stock standard classic DL103. You either love the DL103 or you wonder what all the fuss is about. I'm in the former camp. The DL103 just makes beautiful music and seems to have a real talent for eliminating record surface noise. The DL103 I had was a secondhand one I picked up from one of those online Japanese stores that specialises in selling used gear into the western market. I knew nothing about its history, so wasn't all that surprised one day when it touched down on a piece of vinyl and the cantilever broke off.

In seeking to replace it, this time with a brand new version, I came across a total bargain price for the DL304 and have been happy ever since. Here was the same Denon sound but with far greater transparency and more musical detail. At the price I paid it was more than worth the additional cost above buying a new DL103. The only problem I had was the fact that the DL103 was now useless only because the cantilever had snapped off and I couldn't bear to just throw it away. Sure I had heard about rebuild and retipping services that were available, but I was led to believe that they produced mixed results. Then I came across the particular service that The Soundsmith was offering, thought about it for a while and decided that the idea of ruby cantilever with a nude contact line diamond being added to the dead DL103 was a great way of getting a new DL103 for around about the same price. Obviously, there also seemed like some good potential here for getting an improved sound out of the 103.

Then the evil voice of the audio devil popped into my left ear and said "why not get the rebuild done in a wooden body?" I managed to resist this for quite a while. I had already placed my order with Soundsmith for the ruby cantilever option and the DL103 was winging its way to the US. It was only when Soundsmith emailed to confirm they had received the cartridge, and it was in the standard 13 week wait for a rebuild, that the audio devil popped up again and began a full-frontal assault on convincing me that I would never be happy until the DL103 had been fully reincarnated. After several days I realised that resistance was futile and emailed Soundsmith asking about the wooden body. This option more than double the cost of the rebuild and, coincidentally, took the price of the rebuild to what I had paid for the DL304.

It was audio madness, but I gave into temptation and paid the extra money for the wooden body, then went back to enjoying the 304. Then the fully reincarnated DL103 finally returns in the mail. It looks good but kind of weird too. The wooden body is kind of greenish, it has a brass top plate and you can clearly see that the cantilever is ruby red. Apart from having a certain chunkiness about it, it does not look anything like a Denon cartridge.

I was expecting the sound to be good. I was expecting that it would sound nothing like the DL103 any longer and nothing like any of the other Denon cartridges I had ever heard. I was not expecting the sound to be gob-smacking astonishing. As soon as it touched down on a piece of vinyl for the first time, I knew I was in goose-bump territory. It was the Denon sound taken to a whole new height. The richness and timbre that I love in the Denons had suddenly and dramatically burst into a full and glorious bloom. The clarity, transparency and detail reached beyond not just what the DL103 could do, but the 304 as well, and the soundstaging was simply magical.

I am tempted to say that, with hindsight, I didn't really need to spend the money on the DL304. It's an exceptionally good cartridge and worth every cent I paid for it, but the reincarnated DL103 is simply astounding. It is the cheapest way that I've come across to buy a cartridge that is clearly hitting at the big end of town.

A Tale of Two Amps (Part 1) - The McChanson MarzE Single Ended Triode

It's highly likely that there are only a few people who have heard one of these rather exquisite 8 watt per channel SET valve amps. McChanson is hardly a household name when it comes to stereo systems, yet the maker of these amps, Eric Chan, has been involved with valve amplifiers since the 1960s. He's currently a one man cottage industry, building stereo and guitar amplifiers from his residence in the leafy suburb of Burwood (Sydney, Australia).

I came across Eric largely by chance. Over the last 3 or so years, I have grown interested in what the Chinese have being doing with bringing cheaper valve stereo amps to the international market. Irrespective of the debates about the quality of some Chinese gear, the Chinese have allowed many of us, myself included, to hear what that really expensive valve sound was all about, without having to buy in at the higher end. So in idle moments I regular check valve amps on Ebay just to see what the latest "remarkable" offer might be. Three months ago, the McChanson amp pops up within my Ebay scope and I notice that the seller was in Australia and that what he was offering was truly remarkable indeed.

The offer simply was this: A custom built single ended triode Class A amplifier for between $600 and $750 Australian, depending on which components you chose. Basically, Eric was offering me an opportunity to place an order with him on Ebay, and then work with me (when I won the bid) to build the amp. As I said a remarkable offer, an offer that I thought was too good to be true. So I Googled "McChanson amplifiers" and ended up going through a long list of dud results to find some wonderful snippets about Eric's guitar amplifiers on obscure (to me) guitarist forums. Comments were universally full of praise for the tone Eric's amps could produce, and I realised that a McChanson guitar amp had a bit of a cult following, not just with guitarists in Australia, but also in the UK and the US. Could not find one single thing about one of his stereo amps, but this was looking like it had potential.

So I contacted Eric and we had a very interesting email conversation about what he does and how he works, and I was totally knocked out by his knowledge and how humble he was about having such knowledge. I asked Eric at one point that if I didn't like the amp he built for me would he be unhappy if I resold it? His response was that if I did not like it he would be happy for me to re-sell it, but he was 100% confident that I would like it. He was 100% correct.

Work commenced on my amp in late June and Eric kept in contact with me by email nearly every day. He would send me pictures when he had cut the top plates, when he had commenced the point to point wiring, and ask questions about which of the components he might use that I would prefer. This was during the football world cup, and Eric is a big soccer fan, and he would email me occasionally saying "no work on your amp today, I stayed up all night watching the football" and we ended up discussing the world cup results for several emails.

I ended up paying just over $700 for the McChanson MarzE amp Eric built for me. Better tranformers and the ability to switch between pentode and triode mode. Triode is sweeter; Pentode gives you a bit more kick in power. I made the decision upfront to go with the 6L6 power valves in the amp, and hence have them as strapped pentodes for the SET stage. Eric offers to build this amp in pure triode mode for 300B valves.

I shied away from the 300B configuration; just search the internet and see how much each 300B valve costs. Out of my league right now.

When Eric says he is building the amp in 6L6 mode, he means the whole family of valves that work that way. For example, KT 66s can be used, and EL 34s, easily done with a bias adjustment with a multimeter. This is very much an interactive piece of gear. And you will change the valves to suit what you like. You can't do that with solid state.

Okay, I guess the big question is what does it sound like? Unbelievably transparent; rich and full and incredibly detailed. It gives a big three dimensional sound on vinyl that makes it hard to listen to CD on a good solid state amplifier. So it seems that everybody says that valve amps have warmth; I suppose it does, maybe, but the biggest thing for me is its pure tonal clarity. Vocals and instruments just sound so real on the McChanson.

For the price, this is a simply a killer of an amplifier. And the service you get from Eric, well, what can I say, other than he is an exceptional and honest person, who treats his customers with the utmost respect, and endeavours to find out what they like in order to deliver an amp that suits their tastes.

And what is even better for me is that most nights I get to play it as loud as I want. I am the only guy in a family of five, and yep female ears are more sensitive, particularly to any distortion. There is no distortion on a McChanson amp. None at all.

Here's the link to Eric's current Ebay sale.