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I just purchased a used (first time I've ever seen one for sale used) TU-879S already assembled amp. I'd read a lot about them and wanted to buy a kit to assemble, but I have not been working since September and funds were short, so when a used one came along I could not resist, and bought it.
I'd read the good reviews and wondered if they were true. Once I got the amp, hooked it up, and gave it a listen, all I could think was that I was very happy to have made this purchase. Wow! I was impressed. This unit is totally stock (except for the Sylvania shortplate 12AX7 I put in) and I'm quite happy to leave it the way it is for a while. The good reviews were true and it is much more than I expected. I've rolled vintage Tung-sol 6550s, TS 5881s, EI KT-90s, RCA Blackplates, Realistic (Japanese) 6L6s, and Western Electric 350Bs in it so far. Personally, I like the 6L6s the best and just left the stock Russian tubes in it.
I took it to an amp building friend's house today and put it into his switchable multi-speaker system and he was very surprised with the power this little thing puts out. Next to the great sound we heard from his reference recordings, he was equally impressed with the lack of noise it had when he had his ear right up to the cones of his efficient Cain & Cain speakers. If he hadn't just spent all his 'fun' money on a new preamp and tuner, I bet he would be talking about getting one of these for himself. He also hooked it up to his scope and fed several different signals through it and was again impressed with the decent square wave it put out.
So, I've had this thing for a couple days now and thought that if there is anyone out there considering one of these 8.5 WPC amps that they are very nice for the money. I'm driving a pair of A/D/S L-880s which are somewhere around 90dB efficient and this little amplifier does a decent job with these speakers. As long as your speakers are at least this efficient or better, they should do fine.
I'm also a modifier, so somewhere down the road, when I get a little money put together, I look forward to making some improvements to an already very good amp. If anyone here has already done anything which has made a noticeable improvement, I'm all ears and would like to hear of what you have done. This is one very enjoyable little amp that I think I will have around for quite a while.
Larry
Follow Ups:
If upgrade the 4 coupling PP caps to oil caps, you will suprise how well this amp sounds. TU-879S can drive Proac 2.5 with very good result.
I have some K-40Y PIO caps and some Multicap RTX and some North Creek Crescendos in 0.1uf values. Was also thinking of trying Mundorf Silver in Oil caps. Anyone tried those? I would like to try the V-Caps, but they are too costly at this point in time for me.
Those four 0.1uf coupling caps are the only capacitors in the signal path, correct? Any of the resistors in the signal path that would benefit by having Audio Note or Shinkoh tantalum resistors used in their place?
My amplifier building friend was impressed by the simplicity of the circuit that is used in the TU-879S and that your circuit board was designed so well to run so quietly. He just kept saying that it is hard to get an amp to be as quiet as this one is. I thought he would be as impressed as I was with this little amplifier.
Any of these caps are fine. Both Vcap and Vitamin-Q are good.There are 4 PP caps: C1, 2, 5, 6 0.1μ(with incdication of 104)400V.
Once you have replaced these caps, you will hear a huge difference in the sonic. You can modify the resistor with the Kiwame resistor later.Kiwame resistors are from Japan and characterized by a lower noise than metal film resistors and by a more natural sound.
The power section is one of the special features of the TU-879S. The FET 2SK2750 plays a major role as the filter to reduce noise
Edits: 03/19/11 03/19/11 03/19/11 03/19/11
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