Toolshed Amps 300b Stereo Amp
I am having one built now, check out the review on Part Time Audiophile's site....
It sounds excellent. I will eventually get a dedicated streamer but the Vault has been great. The Lab 12 really surprised me, it has great tone and awesome bottom end. No sub necessary except for movies. Midrange is great , nice extended highs. Smooth and listenable for long periods of time. Nice change of pace . |
Hi Jeff, I don't know.... those pics are from Matt's bench. He says the amp sounds great with Psvanes in it. He is burning it in with those, I sent him a pair of Mullard e180f and RCA 5r4gy which I would expect him to use when he fires it up tomorrow or Tuesday with Western Electric 300b. He wanted to log all the burn in hours on the Psvane , then he will run it in a little with the WE. He plans on shipping it out later this week. |
Just received the 300b. It is frigging awesome .!!!!!..... I will post some pics soon. I unpacked her , made my connections and she fired right up. I'm using a pair of Amperex 6688 drivers, Raytheon ceramic base 274b. Shout out to Craig Ness at Nesstone on that one ! Power tubes are Western Electric 300b. First thing I did was switch on my tuner and did some casual listening while cleaning up the 300 pounds of Styrofoam , wood , and cardboard. I have only spent about an hour listening , had some Mullards in there and then decided to try the Amperex and there were much more to my liking. I will say this about Matt Formanek, he is a no BS guy and delivers exactly what he promises you. Plus he loves nothing more than building music machines Happy listening
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This amp is amazing in it’s retrieval of small details that were never sharply defined with other amps. Reproduction of the human voice is spooky real. I’m still getting acclimated to it and am tweaking speaker placement a little. My initial impression is that this amp nails it with respect to projecting a believable image of the performance, especially with live material. With bad material it is somewhat forgiving and is very listenable With great recordings it is amazing With great recordings I am hearing subtle things that were masked or glossed over with previous amps My Zesto preamp has this amazing quality with transients , the ability to “start / stop” like the crack of a whip. The two pair well and have that quality along with delivering the ambiance of where it was recorded Decay is very realistic and it has no self noise . Very quiet for any amp never mind a tube amp This was a big leap of faith for me, to buy an amp blindly , with no ability to listen first. It is generally something I never do. I called Matt a few years ago about one of his lower powered amps He was straight up and said it was not a good match with the speakers I had at the time. He could have said nothing and sold me an amp that day. I called him a few years later and he told me he was building 300b amps . He said this would be my last amp…. He may very well be right I am going to spend some time with it and follow up after some extensive listening
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I see that you use a balanced AC isolation transformer/conditioner. I find that balanced AC electrical power a very good choice for audio electronics. Are you using copper or silver cables in your system? Your speakers are quite efficient/ high sensitivity. Do you find that you have excess signal gain or is that okay? Not sure how much gain your Zesto has or the voltage output of your DAC? At one time In the distant past I had excessive system gain. So just curious. Charles |
I don't mean to be pissing on your sense of Nirvana, but reality is that there is nothing new under the sun when it comes to 300B amp circuit design and darned little new under the sun with implementation. I doubt that Matt and Ben have the means to wind their own trannies. All other parts have to be purchased from known suppliers too. The beautiful casework may lend great pride in ownership (though it is not to my taste-too Brooklyn Bohemian vibe for me) but it can not make the amp sound better. Yes, a well-designed 300B SET directly heated triode amp will have the attributes you describe and I applaud you for choosing them-I would too. But again, when I see a new amp from a small company with lots of shiny chrome and by virtue of small company/capitalization size no innovation (not that any is really available) I have to say, "OK, glad you like it". I am no hypocrite-I bought an Ampsandsound Nautilus a year ago that is not dissimilar though not 300B based. But I bought it with eyes wide open that the circuit design was ancient. The guy behind the amp, Justin Webber, makes no bones about it. It (the Nautilus) is all about being so basic and so well built that it will last for generations. |
Perhaps it’s me, I never got the impression that @oddiofyl wss suggesting that his new SET amplifier was a new innovative take on anything. Rather a very well built and implemented 300b SET. I’d venture that no “new “ take or approach is even necessary. These ultra simple but time proven circuits are fantastic to listen to. Maybe it’s my inference, but I thought that is all he was implying and sharing. One hell of a good sounding amplifier. Horses for courses I imagine. Charles |
Charles, I do use the EquiTech for most components but I actually plugged the amp straight into the wall The Zesto gain is 12dB, it seems perfect with this amp. George at Zesto recommends setting the internal gain to 3 if the volume control is too sensitive With my other amps it was but I held off on changing it until I got the 300b the 12 dB gain is perfect The 300b's input sensitivity is higher so now the volume isn't as sensitive and it has a broad range of control. It's actually perfect now. My DAC puts out a fixed 2.5 volts , so at some point I may try connecting it directly to Source 2 and use the gain as volume. Something tells me I'll prefer the preamp in place but I want to try it. Fsonic, this amp is loaded with premium parts. THAT'S why it sounds so good. I was in the biz for a while and I know how mfg cut corners spec' ing cheap caps and resistors til they whittle down the build of materials . Not the case with a Toolshed Amp. Inside you will find Dale Vishay, Mundorf, Clarity Cap , Jupiter Cap, Khozmo.... among others. No corners cut here.
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Yep, I’d also compare the DAC direct versus active preamplifier. I’m inclined to believe that the Zesto will be hard to beat.😊 You’ve put together a quite lovely audio system. Charles |
