[b]Experiences with imported chinesevalve amplifiers[/b] The following are some of my recent experiences with two Chinese made amplifiers I bought via Ebay. To start at the beginning I recently bought a pair of AKG K1000 headphones (now unfortunately discontinued), these headphones are of low sensitivity and sound best when driven by a class A valve amplifier. I therefore thought I would try a low powered valve amplifier and decided to purchase two amplifiers I had seen on Ebay which seemed incredibly cheap for what was on offer. One being advertised as a 300B single ended amp using a EL34 driver, which I thought may be interesting and a little different to the normal 300B setup (I believe Sophia Electric and Heart use this combination). Likewise I also bought another single ended amp this time with an 807 output valve (David Manley of VTL likes this as an output valve). Both these amps produce around 10 watts according to their spec, which I thought would be adequate for the AKG's. Payment via a personal cheque proved to be no problem. although when buying always take into account the relatively high costs for delivery from the Far East, typically around £65 -£90 for surface mail depending on weight. The amps took around 7 weeks to arrive which seemed like ages, so next time I may consider air mail although the costs are much higher. They arrived well packed. However, on opening the 300B amp, I found there was no EL34driver valve but a 6P6P valve; this I subsequently found out is equivalent to a 6V6 valve. There were no instructions included as to where the valves should be fitted, nor to any change in the specification. Very similar problems were found with the other amp, here the output valves were different to those specified, instead of 807's they were FD422's which I later found out are equivalent to 2E22 valves, both valves using a top cap but of very different dimensions. I was a little disappointed by these changes in the spec and that I was not informed prior to them being sent to me and that there was no indication with the delivered amps. I subsequently sent an email to the supplier about these problems, and his answer was not very informative or helpful. Now for the pluses, both amps were undamaged with a full complement of valves mainly of Chinese origin and both appear to be well made with a decent chassis, one being stainless steel the other being a chromium plated steel which looked particularly attractive with the black enamel transformer casings (bit like Art Audio). Both amps are hard wired using what appear to be decent components including Alps pots, Elna and Wima caps, I suspect some useful upgrading here could prove to be interesting, perhaps some Black Gate caps. Socketery is good quality with WBT copy loudspeaker outlets and gold plated phono inputs, the front rotary controls feel solid and well made and smooth to operate, by the way the volume control on the FD422 amp appears to have indented positions suggesting it is a discrete resistor type which obviously is not. Both amps worked perfectly when switched on with no real transformer hum or vibration evident even after several hours of use. Now to the sound with the AKG headphones, the 300B appears to have less gain than the other amp with the volume control required to be around half to three quarters depending on the recording level for my listening levels With this amp the mid range is very smooth and revealing without any sense of grain particularly towards the top end, the bass is reasonably well defined but doesn't appear at the moment to be very tight more of a warm rounded bass sound, but overall still an enjoyable sound. The FD422 amp being a pentode output was very different sounding to the triode 300B. The sound at first was much brighter, more get up and go with what appeared to a tighter bass and a wider stereo image (all probably due to more treble energy being available). I have now used both amps for probably around 20 hours or so and they are now sounding much more refined and smoother, in particular the FD422 amp which is now less bright but still very detailed. Both amps give a very detailed sound from the AKG's with images well outside the head, particularly on well recorded discs such as the Steve Strauss 'the dirt' taken from the cd 'Just like Love'on the Stockfish label (available from Germany) Overall my initial observations are that for most cds I prefer the pentode powered FD422 amp for driving the AKG headphones as it has more drive and better bass with a good open top end which generally makes for a good listening experience. Regarding the 300B amp I think I will need to get into the high efficient single driver loudspeaker territory, which I have been considering for a little while. In general I have been well pleased with my purchases even with the changes to the specification and would recommend this method to anyone who is considering doing the same particularly at their current low prices, although as I found out you need to be aware that there are some problems when buying equipment from abroad which you can't see or hear before purchase. Hope you found the above interesting.
