Congrats for your new amp. BTW, a great amp.

aside from a little transformer hum. i'll never feel like going back to SS. It's definitely warmer than my nad with its significantly sharper detailing, which at times was annoying.

first pic at nite

with flash

killer!

if not for the problematic controls on the tube receiver i was using (and the fact that it wasnt mine) i would still be using it. one of these days i want to try a beefy tube amp, my first taste tubes was very tasty.

18w and I just barely need to open the pot on 91 db speakers. What I thought was transofrmer hum has disappeared after a few hours. 6C33C tubes are very stable. I'll see how everything is again tomorrow. I am very pleased thus far. Gotta go to bed now.

probably just had to warm up a little.

Awesome.
Have fun with it.

Two year old daughter is suprisingly mindful of the amp/heat generated. Shouts "No!" "Hot!" and will not touch it under any circumstance. Momma doesn't understand the hobby or $$$$ of it but everytime I turn it on, they both migrate upstairs to listen. This is of course a mixed blessing except that wife likes to stand in front of the speaker.

So far, it handles all types of music. I've futzing with the Scorpions just to check and wow. Even cheese rock sounds good on this thing and it has really good resolution. Wow occurs even with 87db paradigms which are really good IMHO. Much more forward and somewhat less refined than my reference but I sometimes like to listen to them. the amp is definitely a move in the right direction. I was gonna recable too but the dark-sounding cables I have add impact in the lower registers to give good sound. I'll try to do the formal, initial review this weekend.

Yeah, another thing you have learned is that tube watts really are more powerful than SS watts.

Jorge

I had no idea how true this was until now. But 18 being on par with 150...wow!!!

I am afraid I diagree with this. A watt is a specific electrical measurement. By definition a tube watt is going to be equal to a solid state watt. The difference is two fold. One is that transformers buffer the impedance load of the speaker. Secondly, people really need far less watts than they think to achieve thier preferred listening level.

Regards
Mister Pig

I think mister pig is echnically right as W=Joules/Sec. Let's rephrase: Tube watts are higher quality watts than SS. I am sure there is still some roome nitpicking but wow this thing sounds great. The bass is incredible and actually so much more articulate than my NAD.

Of course Mr. Pig is right. A watt is a watt, a Newton/mt is a Newton /mt, a PSI is a PSI, anywhere, anytime.

I was just using one of those old audiofool´s clichés that makes so many of us look like real fools to those outside the hobby.

Jorge