Chinese tube power amplifier. oldchen EL-34 and SDA speakers??
VSAT88
Posts: 1,269
I am writing this to say that I am pretty amazed at how nice this oldchen EL-34 integrated tube amplifier sounds hooked up to my SDA 2b's. I bought it to put in my camper and wanted to do a few things to it and check out the sound before putting it in the camper. Well I stuck in an old set of Winged C EL-34 output tubes I had laying around, hooked it up to a bit nicer AC cord and blacked out almost completely the big huge red LED in the power switch (just too bright to suit). Decided to try it with a set of small monitor speakers I had here. Turned it on and listened for a while and I almost could not believe it. This dog gone thing sounds pretty good! I thought why not try it and hooked it up to the SDA's and I am still like I can really believe it sounds this nice. Got a little less than 300.00 tied up in it. My speakers in this case are only 5 ft. away from me left and right to the listening position so really close. They are in my office. I did not expect to listen at high dB levels but it actually does pretty well kinda loud too. No thundering bass but what it does have is quite acceptable considering its a very low wattage tube amplifier. I ain't gonna lie I like this thing! Might as well say it though. Its no B&K Reference 4420 and that is what normally powers them.
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Synergy is a wonderful thing
Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
Would have to agree. If it were not for that I would have probably had to throw this mother out the window. lol.
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Is that a single-ended EL34 stereo amp?
Even in UL, that's, what, maybe 10 watts per channel? Maybe?!?
EDIT: Mind you, I like, and use single-ended vacuum tube amplification and low power/fleapower (SE 2A3 here for 3.5 blistering wpc)... but horses for courses, you know?
It's remarkable (to me) that such an amp is pairing propitiously with those loudspeakers. -
Looking at 5 wpc. Max according to the guy from Germany that checked out the same amp. He had favorable results. I cannot tell you where I found that dudes review. Forgot.
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So probably triode mode, no NFB, either, then. Those OPTs are pretty small for SE use (especially given that they have to deal with the plate DC offset, unless the output stage uses a parallel feed topology, which I doubt is the case), so LF rolloff will start pretty high up. The very low "damping factor" (high output impedance), though, may subjectively "mask" that.
PS Please do note the edit I made to my first post, @VSAT88 -- I don't want to give the wrong impression about the amp; I am just quite surprised by the successfulness of the pairing! -
I know I really like what I hear however I am listening with 59 year old ears. I thought it too good to be true as well. That's why I bought it. I just wanted to see. My main system (right now anyhow) has a CJ PV 6 and a CJ M75 A1 stuck in it and a set of restored SDA CRS+ TL and all ( Dr. John I think they call him on here??? ) and it sounds pretty fantastic to me so at least I guess anyway I should kind of know what tubes sound like with SDA's. I think it has a lot to do with them being so close to me in my listening position.
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I know I really like what I hear however I am listening with 59 year old ears. I thought it too good to be true as well. That's why I bought it. I just wanted to see. My main system (right now anyhow) has a CJ PV 6 and a CJ M75 A1 stuck in it and a set of restored SDA CRS+ TL and all ( Dr. John I think they call him on here??? ) and it sounds pretty fantastic to me so at least I guess anyway I should kind of know what tubes sound like with SDA's. I think it has a lot to do with them being so close to me in my listening position.
Very possibly.
I used a pair of very vintage AR-3 loudspeakers in the basement with a Maggotbox Magnavox push-pull 6V6 console stereo power amplifier for years. 10 watts per channel from an almost laughably simple (and cheaply implemented) circuit. On paper, a disastrous combination. Sounded quite nice in practice.
It is hard to beat empiricism!
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I think I have always liked getting away with something that I should not have. I would not recommend one to power SDA's even though I have it hooked to this set and I am actually kind of impressed with it. The money would be much better spent buying a used B&K or Adcom if one wanted something inexpensive to power a set of SDA's in my opinion.
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I know exactly what you mean 😂 I just feels wrong that something so inexpensive sounds soooo good.
I have a different Chinese amp from yours but got the same impression. I can’t believe a $200 amp sounds this good. Mine is 12 watts and I’m using it with my monitors 7 and they love it. -
Super cool set up. I would bet it does sound nice.
