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Fuhrious
457
May 7, 2017
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Well something came
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Hmmm I don't remember ordering some nice soft styrofoam...
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Oh that's right, a IP infringing tube amp. Why they heck did I order this again???
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No foam or rubber on the underside just sharp metal, say good bye to any veneer or stain if this thing accidentally moves when its not supposed to
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Fully assembled, nothing came damaged or anything, this thing is pretty solidly built.
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Bare bones. No features at all, just a on/off switch, vol pot, line in and speaker outs.
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Doesn't come with a power cord so keep that in mind. Luckily I have like a surplus electronic store in my garage just for times like this. There was actually no packaging or anything else really. The shipping box was its packaging, no manual or warranty card, no speaker cables or power cable. Just the amp and tubes, thats' it.
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All hooked up, yes I was already chastised for not having my cables combed and all neat. This was for my TV that was above my dresser. Optical out from the TV to a Fiio D3 dac to this Amp to a pair of Teac L-101 speakers.
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Close up of the tubes.
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No they're not Amperex tubes and this isn't related to Amperex at all.
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Tubes after unit is powered on in a somewhat darkened room.
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Sound wise I can't really compare it to anything as I haven't really hooked up any other amps to these speakers and don't really want to. What I can say is that I don't notice any distorting, 33% vol at a good listening level that fills the room with audio. No complains on how it sounds for me and I really like it except for one thing, no remote. Real killer not having a remote for it, so every time I'm finished watching anything at night I have to get out of my comfy bed to turn it off. Its not something you want to leave running for no reason, it gets hot. Now I know its not going to get hot enough to spontaneously combust and it wont catch paper on fire(I tried) but it does get hot enough that I'm not going to risk it and I wouldn't want to waste to electricity anyway.
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Still need to mount the speakers on the wall and come up with better cable management. I could always tie it in with the smart plug and control it with the Echo to turn on and off with the bias lighting so I don't have to worry about a remote.
Overall I can recommend it to someone that wants a very basic bare bones speaker amp to try out tubes. Its pretty neat and can also act as a conversation piece.
Gugliermo
1317
May 17, 2017
FuhriousThanks for the pictures and with all due respect, why on earth would you buy a 3 watt per channel SET Hi-Fidelity tube amp to hook up to a TV?!? and then complain that it has no remote? It's like buying a Ferrari to go grocery shopping and then complaining that it only holds two people and there is no room for grocery bags..... This is not at all what this machine is designed for. It is designed for critical stereo music listening with high efficiency speakers hopefully at least in the 89-91db range. This will produce phenomenal results mostly associated with equipment costing MUCH more that this unit. Read the 6moon review as to how well this unit performs doing the tasks it was designed for, and what a fabulous bargain it is. Do yourself a favor and consider the excellent SMSL Q5-PRO, it has 40 watts @ channel of clean digital power, usb, toslink, and coax inputs for your TV, and, it has a remote.
Fuhrious
457
May 21, 2017
GugliermoI didn't order this for any particular reason. After I got it the only real use case I had for it was hooking up some speakers to my bedroom tv. I didn't really touch on it here but I went more on about how its probably the worse use case for this item where I normally post. To get around no remote I could connect it to the smart plug hooked up to the Echo that's controlling the bias lighting as I don't find myself changing the volume on it much. But in all honesty, yeah I don't have much use for it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Gugliermo
1317
May 23, 2017
FuhriousGot it. Using tubes to amplify dialog and movie sounds is pretty useless and it doesn't do that near as well as it's SS brethren. But feed it a high quality music signal and out to some high efficiency speakers and the magic happens. If you have no use for it, I'll gladly trade you for a SMSL Q5 Pro, (-; Awesome little desktop amp that can receive toslink, coaxial, and usb signals and pump out 40watts X2, comes with a remote. No outboard DAC needed. Perfect for hooking up to a bedroom TV/desktop speaker setup. It's even smaller than the Mini. Regards.
angerthosenear
25
Jun 27, 2017
FuhriousPerhaps get a smart outlet like the WeMo to remotely turn it on/off. Will at least save you from leaping out of bed. Interesting about the packaging, I hope mine arrives safely. Parcel services tend to be quite rough out here.
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