Death Of A Tube Amp (A Short Story)

*Most of this story is based on actual events that led to the events in my other posting on bad Chinese sellers at Aliexpress/I am also purposely ambivalent on the gender of the first person protagonist, and the implied anthropomorphic relationship to the amplifier mentioned*

Bought from MassDrop (now calls itself Drop, yea, I would drop them all right...so hard..) took 6-7 months to arrive, no warranty, nobody told me this uber-cute gorgeous lil thang was going to be as much trouble and heart break as she was a stunner to look at.

First sign of trouble was the ’zzzCCCHHHZZZZZzzzz’ comin through the speakers when the lil she-devil was in the system. So I bought my lil girl a power filter. That seemed to make her happy for awhile. She did not like unshielded interconnects, too I found. She’d grow way too hot if you asked her to play for more than a coupla hours. Her auto voltage did not seem to be all that accurate for local voltage I guess.

At first the thrill of my very first tube power amp from China by way of the USA was a thrill, thrillingly I write.
How did the thrill wear off? She still looked a beaut, but I had to tube roll on the girl, just had to. Sound was thin, weak, rolled off, undynamic, I wished it wasn’t I really, truly, really, absolutely wished it wasn’t :(
Wasn’t the speaker-amp matching either, pair went plenty loud, LouD, LOUD!

So I bought her the finest NOS 6aq5s and golden tube adapters, the most refined Mullard EF95s for her virgin input tube sockets. She almost smiled, I swear.

So when I read some online partners of her cousin the APPJ for headphones only amp, how they modded their little girls so hard that they started to sound like the LITTLE CHINA IDOLS we all KNEW they were deep, deep, down inside....o.m.g. I had to do it. I just had to.

But she won’t open up. No way, Jose. Hours turned into days, I grew old, I grew weary. Was there no way to open up this amp? NONE?!

Desperation grabbed me by the lapels of my Christian Dior(not really, I don’t own big brand shirt label shirts...this is a story, remember? I can embellish...) and shook me like the deluded leaf I was turning into, and soldering iron in hand, I swore SWORE I would mod this baby if that’s the last thing I did, dag nabit!

SO I broke her :(
I broke her *sob* my little giiiiiiiiirl.......!
I finally took her to one of her uncles, a man from China with a shop in Singapore, he may have been the guy who made or created the Meng Yue Angel line of amps, the aunties of my little girl, oh APPJ 2013, you wound me so! Why can’t I get you to sing?
And he charged me as much as I paid for my China Bride. My Lolita. Light of my life, fire of my....*ahem*

Twice burned, i carried the little one home, plugged her in good, and got the worse crap ass sound.
....

WHAT DID THAT BAD MAN DO TO YOU, DAUGHTER!?!

Wrong caps, wrong values, nothing I asked for were replaced as I asked :(

I tried to fix her myself, I really did. She seemed to work for awhile, then she died. Again.


oh my dear non existent ego-projection and clan bonding mythic god, what happened?!

I.finally.gave.up.

So now I seek a replacement and after another episode of battling the Sellers, I finally got to order a slightly bigger amp using the same tubes as my now oh too dead little one...
hope they send it, hope it works out....I’d be giving up on cutey APPJ for a literally OLD BUFFALO (amp brand name, among other names - Old Chen, Old Buffalo, Aichen, Aiqin, Douk, Nobsound, take your pick), ugly old thing. Should sound fine. :)