I just realised that I didn't specify where the Lundahl output transformers and wiring harnesses came from! Those were also from Tube Sound Audio so jump through the link in the description if you want to pick up a pair for yourself and get the absolute best sound from your 8200R! I've also discovered an error in my L-Pad diagram! Both inline resistors (22 ohm) should be in the positive signal path! Sorry for any confusion!
I really like your videos, but this was way above my comprehension level. Still gave it a thumbs up, as I'm sure many people would understand what you were trying to convey.
Yeah, this one got into some technicalities that I wouldn't normally cover. It's really intended for those who want to build and modify amps like this one. Thanks for watching and liking it, Mike!
It feels like I have heard this amp after watching your review very detailed 👍. I have tried all recommended 12au7/ecc82/cv4003 variant with my previous woo audio amp such as RCA cleartop Telefunken ECC802s Mullard cv4003. Turned out I didn't like them all. Finally I settled with RCA Non cleartop black plates. That was a really good year long listening.
So glad that I could make it clear what I was hearing! Thanks for sharing your tube rolling experiences - it's always quite the journey and ultimately an individual/personal pursuit
Very informative and detailed video, thank you! My current setup is: - DAC: Fiio K9 Pro Ess - Pre-Amp: Xduoo MT 604 and FX-Audio tube 03 mkII (waiting for some MUSES02) - Amp: Singxer SA-1 - Headphones: Hifiman Sundara and Arya v2 - Speakers: Adam A5X that I use at my desk The Tube pre--amps have given a taste for tubes and I have been exploring more high end tube amps, including the DIY options and watched all your videos on the topic. Great resources! I mostly enjoy Jazz and acoustic music and love details, layers and soundstage. I have been looking at a few options for my next purchase and was wondering what you would recommend both in terms of sound quality and bang for buck? I'm currently leaning towards the Bottlehead S.E.X. with some Sennheiser HD800S. I like the point to point wiring idea but wonder how much of a limitation the lack of tube rolling option will be as it's part of the joys of tube amps and how the sound quality will be vs other options. Instead or getting this package I could go for a Bottlehead Mainline, which you seem to be a fan of, just wondering how big a jump it is vs the S.E.X. Other options include a modified Elekit TU-8200R, Woo WA22 and WA7 fireflies (though slightly different proposition) and Ampsandsound Kenzie OG. Would love to have your thoughts. Thanks!
I haven't yet delved into the Woo Audio or Ampsandsound gear, but I can say that the Mainline is a significant jump from the S.E.X. Unfortunately, the Mainline also doesn't really allow for tube rolling. I have recently received the Bottlehead Crackatwoa so that will be coming up for review in a couple of months. If you want a tube rolling amp, it's hard to go past the Elekit TU8200R and that works very well with high impedance headphones, but not low impedance unless you modify it significantly (see my review - part 2).
First off: EXCELLENT review. Love your balanced view points, with both positive and critical notes. Question: Are the Sophia Electrics tubes supposed to face "backwards"? Is that common? It looks like the Sophia logo's printed on the tube at the back (ack this has to do with the sockets being mounted on the circuit board and the tube can only be fitted one way).
Glad you liked the review! As for the tubes, there's no one way for the sockets to be mounted, but the socket direction defines the tube orientation so you can end up with labels pointing in funny directions sometimes 🙂
Hi - thanks for the review very well done. I have the same amp - built at Tubesound amp camp with upgraded caps. I do not use headphones - so for anyone using speakers please be aware you will need efficient speakers - 95db or above is preferred. I am currently using a pair of 100db efficient Lii Audio speakers which are very pleasing. They have a a mid range focus as with most full range speakers - I have landed on having the amp in triode mode and using KT88 which works with my ears.
Thanks so much for sharing your experiences, Craig. It's particularly interesting to hear that the KT88s work well with your speaker setup. That makes sense given what you said about the midrange focus of the speakers
@@PassionforSound Hi - just realised mine has a 3 way , high , med , low headphone impedance jumper settings on one of the daughter boards - which I believe came with the upgrade to the R version. Does this avoid the need for your headphone mod or is it solving a different issue (not a headphone guy)
Unfortunately it doesn't help, Craig. It changes the amount of output resistance/impedance on the stock headphone socket, but even the most powerful / least resistance setting is WAY too high for anything but 300+ ohm headphones. ☹️
Hi from N.Z. I watched you for the first time because of your by line DIY Sorry I'm not a great lover of the dark blue paint the blue tubes get lost & don't stand out, your paint chipping is bad prep before painting you should have used 180 emery & scuffed the metals surface to give the paint something to hold onto & 1 coat of paint going across the cover the rest length wise, & wet & dry sanding's between coats to level the paint & finish polish with car polish. Maybe engine enamel or vht paints. What you did with the headphone socket was the way to go because it truly was a winner. Is there enough room behind the original socket to put say a voltage meter about the same size as the volume control ???? & do away with it Your detailed & in-depth description of the effects of tube rolling was just about mind boggling & made this presentation a stand out I SUBSCRIBED Now all you need to do is a set of DIY speakers that are made in AU LOL Rodney Duncan
Thanks for your comment, Rod. The space behind the front panel is extremely limited so you'd have a hard time including anything other than the narrow 6.3mm barrel connector I used. I would have liked to install a female XLR for convenience (not balanced headphone wiring), but it wouldn't fit so that gives you an idea. 🙂
Excellent review! Your channel is a great source of information of audio products and technology. I would like to respectfully request if you can review the new Mcintosh MHA200. It looks awesome and seems that it has very interesting options like the Impedance selector and the possibility of tube rolling. I wonder how it compares to audio brands dedicated to the design of Headphone amps, and mostly if the extra $900 dollars, worth over the Burson Soloist.... thanks.
This is really the challenge with transformer-coupled tube amps: they require very high quality transformers. At the same or lower cost, an OTL point-to-point wiring tube amp like the Woo Audio WA2 is probably a much better alternative for those who only use mid to high impedance (>80Ω) headphones and have no use for passive speakers, and its design, for those who care how their amp look like, is just non-comparable to the Elekit's; and, of course, the amp is sold assempled, no DIY is required. At any rate, this is a very interesting DIY project and a superb presentation and work by Lachlan!!
OTL amps certainly have their benefits. It's just a shame that they generally lack the versatility of transformer coupled amps. I believe there are tricks to get around the output impedance issues though (see the Schiit Folkvangr that's under development now). I also haven't tried the WA2 so I need to check that out as well if it's good down to 80 ohm loads.
@@PassionforSound Woo Audio's website recommends to use >100Ω headphones with WA2 but in the WA2 manual (Specifications section) it is stated "26-600Ω headphones". Personally, I've tried, as an experiment, Final Sonorous IV (8Ω, 105dB) on a WA3 (another OTL amp) and suprisingly enough they performed "OK". In the WA3 manual (Specifications section) it is stated to use of 30-600Ω headphones with WA3. By the way, it would be a great idea if you could get your hands on Woo Audio amps and Final headphones (the Sonorous series); they are both quite unique and highly recommended for reviewing!
Awesome video, thank you. One thing i would like to add is that instead of going through the pain and cost of DIY to improve the headphone use, one can simply use a impedance matching box and connect his headphones safely direct to the amplifier. The cost should be around 45 usd and no skills required.
Glad you liked the video! 🙂 I haven't played around with those impedance matching boxes, but I'd be wary of them altering the sound quality because you're adding further parts to the signal path. My experiences building the prototype vs final versions of the L-Pad for the low impedance output showed me just how important the quality of parts are. They can quickly muddy the sound of not to quality resistors.
@@Tsukino_u hi i will provide you with a link after I finish with work today. Keep in mind that I have not tried this myself so I don't have personal experience.
@@calaf_725 to be fair, this was for a retro-fitted he-6sev2 as well as a high impedance diy dd headphone (to which in this particular case might need them) so i wouldnt worry about blowing out my headphones when they are only 8 watts a channel at 8 ohms from their speaker outs, so pretty similar to most kilobuck ss headphone amps
I have a set of 4 matched sophia electric EL34 in a push pull amp that's sitting unused - I'm considering buying a pair of these TU 8200R to run as parallel ended SET monoblocks to drive some very high efficiency speakers. Which pre-amp tubes did you like best with the Sophia Electric? I'm currently running Amp Camp Amps as bridged single ended transistor monoblocks but want to go back to to tubes.
Excellent review! I agree with you that the stock headphone jack doesn't sound as good as the speakers. I wanted to build an external headphone socket according to your mod. I watched your review a few time but I still don't have an idea how to build it. Would you mind showing what parts to buy and how to connect them? I am wondering which headphone socket to buy, 3 pin or 5 pin? And how to connect the wires to each pin on the socket? Thanks.
I'll do my best to explain it here and hope I make it clear... You need a TRS headphone socket (3 contact points), high quality resistors: 2x 22 ohms and 2x 1 ohm (I used Mundorf M-Resist Supreme for all four). Take the positive lead from your left speaker terminals and connect to a 20 ohm resistor. Take the other end of that resistor and connect to the tip contact of the socket (normally the one in the middle of the socket). You can use hook-up wire rather than the resistor leg to make the connection. Take the right positive lead and do the same (22 ohm resistor), connecting to the ring contact (should be the next contact out from the middle). Now, take the ground from both speaker terminals and connect them to the sleeve contact of the HP socket. Along the way with the ground wires, you need to take the 1 ohm resistors and connect 1 resistor to each of the positive signal leads, but after the 22 ohm resistor. So you're connecting the 1 ohm resistors between the 22 ohm resistors and the HP socket. The other end of these 1 ohm resistors joins the ground path so you'll end up with L- and R- plus the two 1 ohm resistors all connected to the HP socket sleeve contact. I found running hook-up wire from the HP socket sleeve contact back to the intersection of the grounds and resistors was easier than trying to solder all four wires to the HP socket Hope that all makes sense. Try Googling "L-Pad" wiring for some diagrams. There's lots of info around.
Yes, I made a grievous copy and paste error. I think I corrected it in the description or a pinned comment because you can't change a video once it's published. ☹️
Hi Paul, glad I could finally produce it! I haven't played with many budget tube amps so I'm probably not a good person to recommend something. I'm hoping to try a few more in the future though. The Schiit tube amps get a good wrap so I'd probably look there first.
@@mariodrv Thanks for your reply ! Actually that's why I'm looking for something else. The Vali 2+ I have has started to malfunction, ie It stops working and will work again after cooling off for a while. Rinse and repeat. LOL I like it a lot when it works. I am considering a Little Dot MK2 amp while my Schitt gets repaired.
@@PassionforSound Much thanks for your reply ! Actually, I have a Vali 2 + that has started to act up (it shuts off when hot). I'm going to send it back and wanted something to use in the interim. BTW I really enjoy your channel. ;>)
I have this amp, it was the demo version Victor Kong used at his shows and he sold it to me at a great price. I really love this amp. I have several tube amps (push pull and single ended) But what I don't understand is why does this amp seem to have so much more power (or gain) over my other tube amps, even ones with more wattage? For example I have had a Lafayette LA-310 PP amp with more power but the Elekit beats the crap out of it on my AR4x speakers, even a modern solid state amp with 60 watts doesn't make the AR's sound as good as this 8 watt Elekit. Everyone says the AR's need at least 50 watts but this doesn't seem to matter with the 8200. Even the bass response with the 8200 through the AR's is very nice. Can someone explain this to me? BTW, I am using NOS Tungsol silver base KT88's.
Gain and power are very different so you can have an amp that gets louder on more efficient speakers but runs out of puff on tougher speakers. Sometimes it's also about the quality of the amp rather than sheer power.
@@PassionforSound But I find it hard to believe the other amps are of lesser quality. The Elekit is THE amp anyone who is interested in getting into tubes should get, hands down. I think the only reason it isn't respected more by audiophiles is the look and the thinner metal chassis. If it was in a heavy chassis with "decorations" then they would be praising it a lot more.
Very true about the look of it. Don't forget that synergy sometimes plays a part too. It might just work particularly well with your setup and your tastes
Excellent review! I am surprised that I can make better output for the phones on ELEKIT 8200. I am going to buy my first magneto-planar headphones with impedance 25 ohms and I would like to try your modification. Can you please send to me a schematic how to build internal/external headphone modification with BOM? Thanks in advance.
Hi Peter, I don't have a schematic, but my description and diagram in the video should tell you everything you need to know. Just pause the video on the diagram to get the design and then you can use whatever resistors work well for you. Personally, I found 22 ohm resistors in the signal path and 1 ohm resistors from the signal path to ground gave me the right results. Be sure to buy high quality audio / crossover grade resistors as it makes a big difference. They also need to be able to handle a reasonable power level. I think the Mundorfs I bought were rated for 5W or more. That's probably overkill, but best to have over 1W as a bare minimum I think.
Thank you very much for response, I found Visaton audio rezistors 10W which should be fine. You mentioned that 22 ohm resistor should be in signal path but I found in your video diagram that it is in - L path. Should be in +L path?
My GEC KT-66s are my absolute favourites, but the Mullards are great too. I haven't tried NOS Mullards for some time, but I have been pleasantly surprised by the new production Mullard EL34s I bought for the 8200R. They don't match the heights of the NOS ones, but are still excellent for the money.
@@PassionforSound we are at the bottom of the barrel regarding nos, especially matched power tubes, GEC's are legendary. i used to retube guitar amps completely with nos but since it's too rare and expensive these days i only swap the first preamp tube to nos, maximum impact on the tone without breaking the bank, a used working vintage mullard 12ax7 is under 100$.
That makes sense. I've begun finding some really nice new production tubes lately too so hopefully, as NOS stocks do dwindle, we'll get some better and better new versions
