Those weird, cheap little Asian-made, odd- brand-name, single-ended vacuum tube amplifiers

mhardy6647
mhardy6647 Posts: 33,801
edited April 2019 in 2 Channel Audio
Perhaps the best and most comprehensive (not to mention objective) assessments of one of the multitude of odd little Asian (Chinese, in this case) vacuum tube amplifiers I have yet
seen has just been posted at hifihaven.

If any of you are thinking about/curious about what you get for 300 or so US smackers*, I reckon this would be an interesting read.

https://hifihaven.org/index.php?threads/this-isnt-about-cheap-asian-sourced-amps-preamps-but-it-is-about-economics-and-value.4569/page-2

The in-depth stuff starts here:
https://hifihaven.org/index.php?threads/this-isnt-about-cheap-asian-sourced-amps-preamps-but-it-is-about-economics-and-value.4569/page-2#post-94667

qsovc09is9ne.png
Borrowed image taken and posted at the link above by "paulbottlehead"

_____________
* or Samoleums, if you prefer.
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Comments

  • verb
    verb Posts: 10,176
    Interesting read thus far Mark! Had to smile as the Monoprice amp is becoming renowned! :smile:

    But, not surprising, with regard to the quality, and authenticity, of the components used for those cheap amps.

    Thanks for sharing! :smile:
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  • SIHAB
    SIHAB Posts: 4,899
    I stopped reading. caveat emperor :p
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  • tonyp063
    tonyp063 Posts: 1,083
    There's a couple of things to look at.
    Full disclosure. I own one of the older APPJ 2013 & a Massdrop EL34 one.
    They sound surprisingly better than I think they have any right to.
    IMHO:

    You know, going in, that these are *not* serious audio pieces. For whatever value of serious you want.

    You know that the vendors & manufacturers over there respond to trends by being fast, cheap & crufty.

    You're seeing the results of the successes of things that were introduced, with decent quality in manufacture, 5 or so years ago.
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