Up for sale, Canary CA-608 amp. In short, I lost the battle of wills at home about having a valve amp in my lounge with a 3 year running around. That's despite buying one that is full enclosed, thus preventing prying fingers getting anywhere near the valves. Sure, it gets fairly warm, but it's not that it's genuinely hot. IMO it's just warm enough to discourage young fingers. Here's the key bits that I've dragged directly from Solidgolds ad: ================================================ Big American EL34 integrated in excellent condition c/w double box, mains lead and manual. This has had Living Voice upgrades and the EL34 valves were changed towards the end of last year to some wonderful-sounding NOS ones from Definitive Audio. This no longer has a step-down transformer as Definitive did some fiddling around with the innards. Inside changes to the standard CA-608 model include an ELMA gas evacuated input selector, TKD stepped attenuator and Hovland MusiCaps. It can be further upgraded with a Border Patrol power supply and Definitive can 'turbo charge' it with Kondo...... Works a treat with sensitive speakers - the Canary/Living Voice combo is rather good. HiFi+ Editors Choice award in 2001/2002. Some specs for you: 40 Watts RMS Weight: 58lbs Dimensions: 19" W x 19.5" D x 6" H Tubes: 4 x EL34 2 x 6SN7 1 x 12AX7 [img]http://i1212.photobucket.com/albums/cc458/solidgold9000/amp009.jpg[/img] ================================================ I did do quite a bit of reading prior to buying the amp, and have also spoken with Kevin Scott, who was shall we say "rather effusive" about the build quality. In short, this is nothing like a sub £1k Chinese clone. For one thing, it weighs more than most large floorstanders and is apparently built to ensure not only top quality sound, but also very quiet operation and reliability. I bought the amp on Sat and have only really had Sunday night to listen to it. The context of my system is that I have some Impulse horn loaded Ta'us speakers (newer versions of H2s), the source being an SB Touch into a Meridian 568.2 acting as a stereo DAC and pre-amp. The Canary replaced a Bel Canto Evo2i, which IMO is the best solid state amp I've ever heard. No, the Canary doens't have the bass control of the Evo2i, but that's hardly unexpected as that's one of the key strong points of it's Tripath design. Making up for that, the Canary outperforms the Evo in just about every other way. Above all, the mid-band is simply lush, with wonderful textured vocals and guitars. Somehow, it even makes compressed music actually sound listenable (e.g. some of the Manic Street Preachers albums). It also achieves that seemingly US trait of putting together a lovely big soundstage. IMO it's the closest I've come to having the band in my lounge. To say that I'm unhappy at having to sell this on is an understatement, however whilst the amp makes great music, my wife is the person who I have to try to keep smiling for a long time to come, and she's just not going to let me keep it. I'm simply hoping to mimimise losses on the price, so my starting point is £925. I'm willing to post within England, Scotland and Wales. I'm more than happy to dem, located in Sutton, south London. Any questions, please ask.
