New Yaqin 300B tube amp!

madmax

I've been itching to try an amp that uses 300B tubes, didn't want to pay $4K plus for a Manley or $1600 for a kit so I pulled the trigger on one of these last week.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/YAQIN-MS-300B-King-Vaccum-Tube-Integrated-Amplifier-New-/260476030499?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3ca594ce23

It has a heart stopping (on my speakers at least ) 8wpc and sports Shuguang 300B tubes and uses a tube rectifier. On the front panel you can choose either an amplifier only input or 3 other inputs which invoke a preamplifier stage.

From the pics I thought it would look ok assuming the parts were real metal parts, not plastic moldings or whatever. And of course you always figure you can replace the tubes with something better assuming it works at all.

I received it yesterday from Hong Kong in a bullit proof box without a mark on it. The seller sent me pics of it packaged up before it was shipped as well.

As I opened up the packaging I thought to myself that this is pretty high end packaging. Easy to open, everything formed, could be used over and over with no degragation. I grabbed the amplifier, pulled it out and was overwhelmed by the parts quality. Holy Bejevias, I said as I looked at it. It is a BIG piece of equipment and very classy looking. Not a mark on it either. I hooked it up and it everything is running, no noticeable sound characteristics other than the general 300B sound which has a little emphasis on voice. It is a tube made early on for telephone use afterall. Its also the tube used in the first talking movies.

I Think I will be very happy with this amp. Another note on looks/build quality: If I gave most audiophiles the choice of any piece of my equipment and they only know by looks, I can guarantee they would probably pick this amp as the thing to take.

Maybe a real review after it breaks in...
madmax

concealer404

I've been completely blown away by the percieved quality of this company's products. I will probably be trying one of their cd players in the winter when i settle back into my audio addiction.

sda2mike

i had one of their tube-buffers....soli piece...enjoy, chuck!

BlueMDPicker

Dibs.

madmax

I forgot to mention, it came with an aluminum remote control. You don't want to drop it on your toe, thats all I can say. I may try it on the SDA's tonight just to see what it does.

This doesn't replace my 1.5wpc Transcendent sound amp or the Manley amps, they all have their place. I'm still in utter amazement everytime I play the transcendent. I figure if I rotate the amps every now and then I'll get an appreciation for what each one does best and worst. There is certainly no "best amp for all occasions" out there. (The transcendent is very close though. )

heiney9

Looking forward to your impressions as I'm very close to buying an EL34 based amp from Yaqin and the same seller.

How long did it take to get here with the free shipping?

H9

madmax

I highly recommend Tubestein168 as a seller!

It took about a week. I actually paid x amount for the amp and x amount for the shipping but it doesn't matter, the total was the same and the shipping method was the same. It took about 7 days. The seller was awesome. I have to say it was one of the better transactions I've had on ebay. I ordered it and sent paypal but included the wrong shipping cost which was my mistake. The seller sent me an email pointing out my mistake and offered nicely to either send an invoice for the difference or cancel the order and return funds if I no longer wanted it. Once he sent the invoice I paid the difference. The next email had great pics of the wrapped up box showing the UPS label and the invoice. Care was taken to protect the box and some sort of rope was used around the box so no matter what happened it could not come apart. When I received it everything was perfect. Tubestein just sent me an email saying he hopes I am happy with the sound of the amplifier. Top notch seller in my opinion!

It has started to burn in. Last night I listened to several types of music. I found that one of its real strong points is in dealing with the ambience in the room which the recording was made. It really projects that ambience into my room. Another place where it really excelled was in playing older 50's through 70's music which may not have been recorded perfectly. It really puts you in the era of whatever the recording is. I could not get it to distort, even at the highest sound levels I could stand with the horns. The bass sounds real and this roll off of highs I've heard about with most 300B's doesn't seem to happen either. When a lot of textures in the music come together the sound is absolutely amazing. A rough sounding female voice, Tanya Tucker Delta Dawn lp, came across as rough and real with this amp as opposed to just rough on the other amps I've used.

I'm extremely happy with the performance so far. Compared to the Transcendent amp, which can fall on it face if the recording warrants it, this amp turns it into a thing of beauty using real characteristics from the recording. The Transcendent has more detail than the 300B which helps on some recordings and hurts on other. It is a good tradeoff.

madmax

heiney9

So you didn't take advantage of the "free" shipping in the ad you linked to? I've been hesitant to buy from China but it seems like they do a better job of customer service than most Ebay sellers.

I have 3 Dared Audio pieces right now all Chinese and I am very, very impressed with the build quality and the very high quality of parts used and the sound is extremely engaging. But then, they are pretty expensive pieces compared to a lot of other Chinese offerings. If Yaqin is the same way I will be very happy.

H9

madmax

heiney9 wrote: »

So you didn't take advantage of the "free" shipping in the ad you linked to?

No, I paid shipping for mine. Same cost either way. My communictions with the seller left me with the impression he really wanted me to be satisfied with the service.

I can't wait to get home and play it some more! I need to build an amp switcher so I can easily switch between them depending on the music and my mood. Maybe something like the Manley SkipJack but for both input signal and amplifier output. I can imagine a row of relays with a little microprocessor to decide which ones to activate/deactivate. It would require some work to keep it transparent to the sound but seems do-able.
madmax

zingo

I have also been eyeing this amp, so a full review would be great once its broken in if you get the chance.

buccidiego

nice

engtaz

Congrats on the new amp. Looking forward to your full review.

madmax

My plan is to let the stock tubes fully burn in and then review it. Once you change all the tubes around you are into some money and its no longer a $850 device. I've tried to keep the listening at a casual level until then, mostly background music. I don't want to become too well aquainted with it until the review. I usually switch to something else to listen to for a few days before reviewing also. So far I think I have a winner here and thats being compared to some pretty nice equipment.
madmax

heiney9

madmax wrote: »

Once you change all the tubes around you are into some money and its no longer a $850 device. madmax

That is one issue I'm struggling with when it comes to Chinese amps. In my small experience with these, the Chinese tubes are many times much worse than a good set of NOS tubes, but you can get into serious money re-tubing some of the gear.

In fact I have yet to find a current production tube I like as much as NOS tubes from the 40's, 50's, 60's. Even current gear that is shipped with JJ's, EH's, Tugn Sol, etc. need to be replaced IMHO. Once you get the flavor of the old time tubes it's hard to settle for current production tubes. Atleast that's what I've found.

can't wait to hear your review

H9

polkfarmboy

I am looking forward to reading about the performance of this amp madmax

I have tryed to look up the yaqin brand and havent found much reading out there . I have an interest in the tube cdp that yaqin has on ebay and wonder how it would perform http://cgi.ebay.com/YAQIN-SD-32A-Vacuum-Tube-CD-Player-HDCD-Player-/360248674272?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item53e07e87e0

Only search result I found on the forum was http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=91499

madmax

That looks pretty cool! I have not seen any reviews on it though. Let us know if you try one.

Heiney, I don't know what to tell you other than even if you buy the best stuff or the cheapest stuff you still have the same issue. I will go with the stock tubes until they are burned in and then will replace the driver and rectifier tubes. Once I'm used to them I will try a few different 300B's which I have for my preamp.

madmax

madmax

Here is a much better set of pics of the CD player mentioned above.
http://cgi.ebay.com/YAQIN-SD-32A-192KHz24Bit-Upsampling-Tube-CD-HDCD-Player-/130396435405?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item1e5c3bb3cd
madmax

marvda1

here's a review. the amp is sold by grant fidelity of canada. it's $1360 but you get a warranty and canada is a lot closer than china.
http://www.stereomojo.com/Grant%20A534%20Amplifier.htm/GrantA534Amplifier.htm

http://www.dagogo.com/View-Article.asp?hArticle=334

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue41/grantfiledity_534b.htm

madmax

Its almost the same amp, only the display is different. A little digital stuff going on with the grant fidelity display? The yaqin has source buttons instead.

I played the Tubular Bells LP last night on the yaqin. It has a lot of cool sounds on it. Normally I get bored with the content and have never before made it all the way through the LP but it wasn't a problem last night. That might say something for the amp.
madmax

reeltrouble1

This is just fine Chuck, totally Tubular, but I am not buying any gear that has a q not followed by a u, u can, but its still not phonically correct.

M is for Manley.

RT1--see, desire, covet, acquire.....see the U

madmax

reeltrouble1 wrote: »

This is just fine Chuck, totally Tubular, but I am not buying any gear that has a q not followed by a u, u can, but its still not phonically correct.

M is for Manley.

RT1--see, desire, covet, acquire.....see the U

Well RT, I got a big FU for you. As in FU-13, see the link.
I just ordered this one yesterday. There are a bunch of great reviews for it and I was a little trigger happy. So this uses a 100W transmitter tube strapped down to class A single ended 20 to 30 watts and 900 watts of energy wasting heat. It should be a winner over the winter! I figure I'll get it burning in while playing with the 300B.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310228519837&ssPageName=ADME:X:AAQ:US:1123

Face

When you want to try a really nice SET: http://www.ayonaudio.com/products/amplifier/integrated-amplifier/crossfire.html

reeltrouble1

I will check it out, cant see the bay right now.

ayon is hot stuff, visited a dealer near daytona who sells their gear, hi-fi for sure.

RT1

madmax

$10K isn't completely insane but I would not allow them to put those funky little cages around the tubes...

Face

Fortunately, they're optional. I believe they're for foreign markets.

zingo

I'm playing around with 300Bs right now, and it's a fun amp, but I've decided to have one of these head over my way. It's a 845 SET amp that specs at 20wpc, 1kV supply, and 80lbs. It'll be interesting to give it a good and see how the SQ is; plus it has twice the SET power of a 300B.

madmax

I like it! What does the anode current regulator knob (or button?) do?

zingo

Wow that's a big picture. Sorry guys...

I believe those knobs are to set the bias for the 845 tubes via the mA meters on the front, but I haven't received the unit yet, so I'll have to get back to you on that. I'm not diggin' the metal tubes, but we'll see what happens.

I've also read that using a 300B in the input side of the amp is not the best triode for the job, but nothing says excess to me more than a SET amp with 300Bs that doesn't use them for power.

madmax

zingo wrote: »

I've also read that using a 300B in the input side of the amp is not the best triode for the job, but nothing says excess to me more than a SET amp with 300Bs that doesn't use them for power.

My Manley preamp uses the 300B's and its awesome. Yeah, that is a pretty big pic. I couldn't find that amp for sale anywhere, is it current production?

zingo

It is in current production, but all their distribution details are in Chinese on the site. I have been working directly with the company, but I know there are some floating around online. Here is their website:

http://www.lsyx.com/cn/index.asp

madmax

Its beyond me how people read that stuff.

When I saw the pic of the amp I was thinking $3K+, didn't realize it was from China. Not saying anything about it, just thinking about all the reasons we can't make it here for that.