Tubelover Indonesia

I connected the amp, very good and solid build I must say. Plugged in the 10Y then the beautiful Telefunken RS241 and held my breath and fired it up. All tubes lighted up and as you have mentioned there is timer delay circuit on it as the circuit switches on the HT and the red led lights up.

My evaluation was from my cd player connected to the SILK TVC trans passive preamp and directly straight to your amp. Played Stacy Kent and turned the volume up 2 clicks, sound from both speakers are fine...

Proceeded to warm it up while I work on my 76 pre amp at the same time, was gonna fully listen to evaluate the amp only after 1 hour of playing... I listened to it after playing it continuously for over 1 hour, guess everything is stable.

Initial thoughts, oh very very natural and refined presentation. Depth is very pronounced with this amp. I can actually hear a lot of background details, low bass frequencies are pretty deep. I must say not kicking but deep, but most importantly vocalist is more forward and somehow more in the room, guess my other amps were laid back. Very very fine voice as well.

Very black background, very quiet, but also noticed that is slight distortion in the sound, slightly but there. Is this normal in the running in period?

Before this amp, I used to also own a DIY custom build 300B amp simple 2 stage RC coupled circuit, which I have sold but still I thought sound so wonderful in the midrange and vocals. This RS 241 amp kills it for 'kehalusan suaranya' and most important the naturalness like I mentioned earlier. Sangat 'asli'.

Your choice of caps and components are so well matched that the sound is simply 'as if a real live person's voice' plus good articulation and presence of the instruments that play around it. Separation is very very good, not so dynamic as I thought it could be but hey only 4.5 watt.

Full analogue natural sounding system now, I don't even know if any commercial amplifier out there that can match this amp. This amp makes my other fully modified SET amps sound hifi like. To date the best ever experience I have ever encountered.

You are really truly a very experienced builder of SET amps. I realize most of the distortion goes away after playing for many hours, so its really ok now.

For my next amp, please build me something the opposite extreme of this, huge dynamics with plenty of speed. I like to showcase my system to people that look down on SET systems. Thanks again and well done one great amp build I must say! I just came out of my sound room, lost for words...

Dixon Chen - Malaysia (dixchen@gmail.com)

 

It was in early 2003 when Mr.Arif Wicaksono told me about his vision to do his DIY project. I myself have known him since 2002, not long after I was first introduced (or should I say seduced) to audition tube audio systems by my brother-in-law. Mr.Arif told me a lot of his experience in comparing and modifying audio components.

During his quest for perfected audiophile DIY components, in July 2003 he offered to build for me my own DIY tube amp. The basic design was inspired by the famous Audio Note Quest 300B Monoblock (MSRP US$4000). Interestingly enough (economically speaking), there were 3 alternatives of component plans for the same design for me to choose from. I chose the basic/standard one, which involved the use of Taiwanese generic output transformer, Shuguang 300B tube and GE 6SN7. When the dual-mono amp (the monoblock design was altered to reduce cost) first came about 6 weeks later, my days were busy to turn the amp on, in order to reach break-in as soon as possible. I counted every hour till it reaches 100 hours of break-in. The hours after the first 60 were incredible, smooth and soft highs. Please excuse my first taste for Taiwanese OT as my previous audio involved only a couple of Jamo satellite speakers and Yamaha AV Receiver :-).

Weeks went by, my ears enjoyed and demanded more. My style of listening became the one where I turned up the volume to 10, later 11 and finally 12 o'clock. At 12 o'clock I became sad as crickety noises became apparent. Turned out the OT was the culprit.

The OT problem was the beginning of my series of experiments in changing the tube amp components. The 300B was replaced by that of Svetlana, which brings out tighter bass and darker background. And the offer for ceramic-base 300B Sophia came from Mr Arif, before settling with the black-base Sophia. For me the change after change brought significant improvement to my ears. The 6SN7 is also replaced by RCA black-plate and finally the OT is replaced by AudioNote AN-144. Now I can hear (or sense?) perfected soundstage and more details in the music.

Now, I'm already settled with these components in my Tubelover for almost 2 years. I shall cling to this baby till I'm old enough to pass it on to my son. Every time I played the amp combined with my Consonance Reference CD 2.2, I believe I'm listening to the best any US$1500 tube amp can offer in value.

Just enjoy the music. Not the bill.

Adam Gifari - Jakarta, Indonesia (08551020340)

Emang deh si Tubelover Preamp 26 itu yaaa…!!! Mid dan vokal: truly transparent, natural dan open banget. The immediacy of 26 is really excellent. Ciamik..!!

Repro bassnya? For me as a kind of person who marriage with tubes either  ;-), well…. I accepted what she gives, and my ears get enough satisfaction though..

Congratulations!!

Doni Damara - Jakarta

Karena menganggap tabung audio adalah teknologi yang sudah ketinggalan, sebetulnya hati saya penuh keraguan saat memutuskan membeli dan menggunakan perangkat audio yang menggunakan tabung sebagai komponen utamanya. Maka saat pertama kali saya “turn on” pre amp dan power amp tabung bermerk Tubelover, yang buatan lokal itu, saya terkesan dengan tingkat hum/noise yang ditimbulkan karena sangat kecil sekali. Itupun kalau didengar dari jarak sekitar 20 cm dari speaker, padahal sensitivitas speaker horn loaded Fostex FE 206E (rakitan Tubelover juga) yang saya pakai sebesar 96 dB/m/w. Benar-benar di luar dugaan untuk perangkat “hand made” rumahan (….bukan murahan, jangan salah…:-)). Ketiga perangkat ini saya pasangkan dengan CDP NAD C540 melalui interconnect dan kabel Harmonic Technology yang notabene bukan kelas high end. 

Setelah warm-up sekitar 1 menit, langsung saya pasang CD album Midnight Jazz Lounge-nya Janet Seidel, dan putar track ke 7 yaitu lagu Fever, dengan tujuan untuk menguji kualitas bass. Kenapa? Karena sejauh yang saya tahu bahwa perangkat tabung titik lemahnya di reproduksi nada bass, bila dibandingkan dengan perangkat solid state. Hasilnya lebih dari yang saya duga, bukan tentang bass-nya, tetapi saya mendapatkan soundstage dan kualitas mid-range yang selama ini saya idamkan. Soundstage dapat dirasakan wide dan deep, bahkan seakan-akan suara keluar melebihi batas ruang dengar saya. Presentasi suara setiap alat musik dan vokal Janet seakan tertata-rapi sesuai dengan posisinya tanpa ada kesan tumpang tindih. Untuk mid-range benar-benar natural dan transparent sehingga sangat jelas perbedaan suara gitar dan piano, antara clarinet dengan harmonica. Suara saxophone benar-benar mendekati aslinya seakan-akan alat musik tersebut dimainkan di ruang dengar. Kembali ke masalah bass, saya merasa tidak terlalu tight seperti perangkat solid state tetapi tetap bulat dan tidak berkesan tipis. Suara senar double bass terdengar detail berikut gesekan jemari di fret-nya. Jadi biarpun secara kuantitas suara bass kurang tetapi secara kualitas sangat baik sehingga tonal balance masih dalam kategori baik sekali. 

Saya tidak ahli dalam menuangkan perasaan ke dalam suatu tulisan, yang jelas saya merasakan sensasi mendengar musik yang belum pernah saya peroleh dengan perangkat audio saya sebelumnya. Setelah Janet Seidel giliran berikutnya saya putar album Come Away with Me-nya Norah Jones, kemudian What a Difference a Day Make-nya Ingram Washington, disambung Eva Cassidy Live at Blues Alley, bahkan juga Syaharani dan Lion Heart-nya Kate Bush, secara simultan 4 jam tanpa merasa ada rasa lelah di telinga. Terakhir saya putar Concerto in A Minor dari album Two World-nya Dave Grusin & Lee Ritenour sambil meredupkan lampu dan memejamkan mata. Saya benar-benar menikmati duet gitar-piano mereka sehingga tombol repeat di remote saya tekan sampai 3 kali karena memang saya bisa “enjoy the music” dengan perangkat tabung yang memang terasa sangat musikal. Maka saya pun tidak menyesal “bercerai” dengan amplifier NAD kesayangan saya dulu. Bukan perceraian itu yang saya sesali, namun pertemuan dengan perangkat tabung yang terlambat ini yang saya sayangkan.

Ir. Amirul Chusni – 08121055473