Anyone have experience with Yaqin?

Hi Rossbernstein

Have you looked at the products offered by Grant Fidelity? Their Tube Buffers look a lot like the Yaqin Tube Buffers.

I have the Grant Fidelity DAC-09 with a NOS GE tube replacing the stock tube and the sound was VERY pleasant in my other system that is entirely comprised of what many consider Mid-Fi Solid State gear. The DAC-09 can be used as a Tube preamp or Tube DAC too so you have flexibility. It also has a good headphone section that worked real well with my Sennheiser HD580s.

Also Ian at Grant Fidelity is very professional and prompt with inquiries. You could probably find the DAC-09 used for under $200 since Grant Fidelity will be releasing the DAC-11 soon.

Good luck with the search.

I'd like to add something: My goal for now is to get the best "tube" sound possible from my solid state system. This will be my first venture into tubes. I understand people's hesitation with buying from company like Yaqin--not only is there a degree of unreliability with buying from (some) Chinese manufacturers, but they pose a threat to North American manufacturers as well(and elsewhere). But, there is no doubt in my mind that I will eventually be giving a large sum of my money to a respected manufacturer, as my audiophile disease seems to have no end in sight. However, I am a lowly grad student at the moment, and as such my expensive tastes must wait. To that extent, I simply want to enter the tube-realm, and any options that would be in the same price range as Yaqin would be great as well. In addition, in achieving this tube sound, I am trying to figure out where in my system I can add tubes to the greatest affect at the lowest cost to me--so this doesn't necessarily mean a tube amp, but perhaps just a tube preamp or a tube buffer, if I can get a satisfactory effect from either of those. If I were to go with one of the latter options, then I would save my tube amp purchase for the future when I have more money to spend. So, one thing I'm trying to figure out is, how much tube sound I will get from just adding a tube preamp to my solid state amp (NAD C375BEE)as opposed to replacing the NAD with a complete tube system, and secondly, if I don't replace the NAD, then how much will the sound quality differ between adding a tube preamp vs just adding a tube buffer (or a tube DAC) and continuing to use the NAD's built-in preamp? I suspect a preamp would add more tube warmth+soundstage than a buffer/DAC, but I'd like to hear someone else's opinion on the matter, as I am just hypothesizing. I have also recently looked at headphone tube amps/preamps (little dot, darkvoice) and I was wondering if I could use one of these as a preamp to my NAD, in addition to using it as a headphone amplifier? Or, are they only compatible with headphones and not speakers? I've heard talk of people using some of them for both, but didn't know if that would cause problems, etc. So, that wraps up everything I've been thinking about in my spare time over the past few weeks and what I'd like to know. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks