Відео

Thanks for the tip! I will play with some other tubes for sure :)

Hope you'll enjoy it!

Hello and thank you!

It doesn’t look like those opamps are swappable. At least not easily. But you can roll tubes - that’s what they’re for besides the look ;)

@NormcoreGreg i guess at this price point, rolling opamps is too much of an ask.

@NormcoreGreg Yes, will check on tube rolling. Appreciate if you can provide some alternatives for the tubes in an upcoming video.

Thanks for the information!

I couldn’t find any on Aliexpress. Can you share a link to the dynavox preamps? I’ll see what I can do.

I treat this as a compliment :D

hilarious

@@NormcoreGreg As long as you don't get angry and turn green! You get a small amount if we buy it ... isn't that compromising you a tiny bit? Moreover, you looked at the components and build quality and didn't cover the important part, how it sounds. The tubes come from Russia ... is that a potential export embargo violation?

@@henrikcarlsen1881 these are all valid questions, thanks! :) As for the sound of it, I talked about it in my original review of this unit, which you can find here - ua-cam.com/video/v6KvBmASEYE/v-deo.html. Regarding the commission (that I'm yet to see) and how it might influence my opinions - I'm an amateur "youtuber" and I do it purely for fun; I purchase all the gear I talk about with my own money (except for three pieces I recently received for free as review units) and make some research before to make sure it's not total crap; having said that I admit that a potential financial reward, however small it might be, may, even on the subconscious level, affect my opinions. But no one's objective anyway and we should always take any information with a grain of salt. Your last question about tubes from Russia - as a Pole I wave a very strong opinion about Russia and how it should be dealt with, especially given the ongoing war with Ukraine. However, I'm not sure such tubes are of strategic importance. Also, I'm not sure if they come from Russia or from some other ex-soviet country, e.g. Ukraine. I appreciate your concerns in this matter though.

​@@henrikcarlsen1881are you serious, there always has to be one

Thank you @@EBSELPROAUDIO :)

@@jantepas7511 better yet, you can add blinking backlight to match the jumping needle ;)

@@ElwiraMart you’re welcome Elwira :)

I’ll do my best to take it apart and show you the internals. Hope to upload it this week.

It’s being sold by multiple sellers (also at various prices). This one for example comes with free shipping - a.aliexpress.com/_ExjEILz

@@CORVUSMAXYMUS you probably wrote this comment on a device „made in China” ;)

@@CashGravel it doesn’t have a built-in DAC. But the WiiM does, so you can use its’ analog out (aux).

No, I have the tiny dac that’s only optical and I feed it into an SMSL dac. You didn’t mention if it had any gain in the output stage.

@@CashGravel every WiiM streamer, even the Mini, has a built-in DAC and analog out. If you have the Mini, it’s a 2,5mm jack marked AUX. Having said that, your SMSL might sound better than the one inside WiiM. As for gain in the preamp I tested, I believe it does, although I did not take it apart, nor did I measue it. And the manual is in Chinese ;)

@@NormcoreGreg yeah I’m not too fond of using that little auxiliary output over an optical output, but I realized I could run the deck through the preamp and then into the amp and it would solve that problem. I’m mostly curious about the gain however because the speakers I use are maggies and it’s not so much the tonality change I need but a bump in power would be nice

@@StrangeBrewReviews I did not. Not yet at least ;) Any good?

Thanks. Second hand gear is a great option.

2nd hand can be very good value But those leading brands you mentioned - surely even secondhand it would be more than $1000, unless it’s a very old one ?

@@richardgrant418 price varies from country to country and also from different models. If interested you should do a little research on what models you are after first and depend on the country where you can get them from. Read a few reviews, the 2 brands above are outstanding one, and also Solid state Preamp from Parasound designed by John Curl.

Do you mean phono stage?

@@NormcoreGregYes

@@thelowprofile9767, the headphone amp is actually pretty decent. I’ll be uploading a video showing the internals later tonight. It also includes the amp specs, so you might want to check this put. Sorry, but I do ‚t have my notes with me right now.

That’s also an option. I’m not a huge headphone fan, so I wasn’t looking at headphone amps.

@@NormcoreGregI am not a headphone user, but the head-amps and DACs often include excellent pre-amplifier capabilities built in. For $100 the L30 is an excellent preamplifier. I have a few including some tube head-amps. I have them connected to a “passive preamp” aka a custom RCA switch. I much prefer them to a dedicated preamplifier.

@middleearthltd, I have two of those on the way from Fosi Audio, so I’ll verify your theory and report it back soon ;)

@petkokaratonev9233, agreed! I am actually planning to make a piece on hi-fi brands from Poland.

Awesome! I hope you'll enjoy them as much as I did :)

The design is indeed unique, but so is the sound, in my opinion.

I've seen dual ports or dual radiators before, but never a mix of the two. I'm intrigued.

@@bryede it's strange indeed. But the effect was really impressive! Maybe they have discovered something completely new ;)

That’s why I called the speakers „exotic”, because for now they’re hard to get. I talked to Pro Acoustic about their distribution and they said they’re working on the website in English. I hope it will be up soon.

Tubes are hard to beat. I’m experimenting with tube preamps paired with ZA3s to see if such combo can result in tube airiness and class D power.

I’m just trying to enjoy my hobby :)

Thanks for your kind words Carl!

Hi my consience :) I own a pair of Sonys and for me Boses (?) are much more comfortable and built to a higher standard.

@alanfenick, I’m perfectly aware that this is by no means an „objective” review, but can there be an unbiased one? I’m simply describing my experiences with the gear and my impressions. They’re biased by my room’s acoustics, the quality of source materials and all other componensts of my system. Most probably also by my wife’s mood and my children’s behaviour on a given day :) I simply enjoy trying out different audio components and seek the synergy that brings me joy. And then I get bored and start looking for something different. Finally, I’m just trying to figure out if the youtube space works out for me. I like apples and oranges. Life would be boring if you could only have one of them ;)

@seeteeshock, thanks for the link - very interesting stuff! However, I'm not really surprised. This is very common across all types of goods that well established brands sell OEM items with their logos on it at a high premium. That's what you get when you invest a lot (of time and money) into building a strong brand. For us consumers this means we can often get the same quality for much less. But the cost is the time we have to devote to search for such replacements.

I haven’t tried any new ones from Bose simple because the ones I have just keep on going intact :) But Indo hope they keep improving their products, not the other way round.

They’ll last forever. Fun fact - Bose’s majority owner is MIT. Maybe that’s why they’re of such high quality :)

I hope to get my hands on them as well.

I'm a sloooow talker 🤷‍♂️ But you can always play it at x2 speed ;)

@johngreek I don’t know if „better” is the best way to describe it. Your Denon is in my opinion warm sounding and not very detailed. The ZA3 has more power and detail, so it should be able to provide „cleaner” sound and instrument separation. I would just get one ZA3 on Amazon, try it out and return if the new sound is not to your liking.