Elekit TU-8600S Amplifier Review! 

Thanks for the review. I’m building the next Elekit model TU-8900 to use with my DIY Faital 3WC-15 speakers. A fun project!

I finished assembling my 8600S yesterday. It Works! : ) I'm so happy it didn't burst into flames the first time a I powered it up. I upgraded to Jensen Copper Foil paper-in-oil silver lead copper case coupling capacitors, Dale military spec 1% resistors, gold plated ceramic tube connectors for the AU7 and AX7 tubes and used German WBT 4% silver solder for the assembly. I have about 6 hours of listening time in a day and a half with it so far.. : ) I bought an ifi Zen One Signature dac for it also. I am also building a pair of the CSS Criton 2TDX Tower speakers with the superior cross overs. I have the cross overs assembled and now need to start building the cabinets. I hope they turn out to be a good match to the 8600S. All I have for speakers to use with the 8600S at the moment are a pair of the Parts Express "Passive Agressive" Desk top cube speakers I built for my computer speakers.. : ) I was thinking of building the Elekit 8500 Tube preamp to pair with the 8600S as well. After reading Mr. Schneck's comments below I'm not sure if I need one. The 8600S certainly rocks my little desktop speakers! : ) I will hold off on making that decision for a while. At least untill I've finished building the Critons. I've had a pretty high burn rate on cash with what I've done so far. Thanks for the review!

I really enjoyed your video. Working with Victor I was thinking of getting this amp but I have no soldering nor kit building experience so he recommended buying an assembled Sunvalley SV1616D 300B SET amp with Western Electric 300B tubes. I just received the amp two days ago with the 12ax7 and 12au7 tubes. Waiting another week for the WE 300B tubes to arrive. Can’t wait to try a SET amp.

Long time no see - last time I watched your channel was a year ago when I was thinking of purchasing the kit. It is fantastic with a very music sound that feels power way beyond 8-9 watts per channel. A few thoughts and shares: 1. the kit is build based on one primary massive PCB (with a couple of auxiliary PCB for power, output, transform). The primary PCI has a couple of hundred parts to stuff and quite a few hundred soldering point - take your time and take breaks. 2. Consider upgrade the the resistors - I do not have an AB test performed, the takman resistor on this one never run into problem, but the 8500 (preamp) I built using stock resistors experienced a faulty resistor in about 5 months - I am not the only one, or two - a couple of reports (that one channel is dead though phono signal line). 3. Tubes - Genelex appears to be the sweet spot for me (at the time) but still think the same now now - a year ago all genelex / tung-sol / EH cost ~150 per 300B tube matched (and JJ was 125) and now Genelex is 200+, EH is 175, and Tun-sol is 165, JJ is out of stock. It can power a less efficiency speak (LS50s original 85DB SPL 1m 1W) if in a relatively small room, say, up to 20' by 15' without hearable compromise.

Thanks for the review I’m seriously considering getting one to build. Beautiful home by the way

Thanks for reviewing this amp and giving your tweaks.

Good job, stay with it. Maybe design your own Tube Amplifier ? Your on the way, you wouldn’t surprise me. Good luck !

Nice review. I agree - this amp is a keeper! I had one built (sad, I know), with upgraded capacitors, resistors, and volume pot upgrades from Victor and I'm using some WE 300b replicas that Victor also recommended. I find it to be an extremely dynamic, revealing, low noise amp that has a what I would consider a "warm" sonic signature that at the same time doesn't feel like it colors the sound very much. Interesting your experiences about the amp sounding "disjointed" at first. Wonder if the different wiring you were using on your speakers was the culprit..? When I first set this amp up I assumed I needed a pre-amp because it only has one set of inputs and in the review I saw from the ever-popular Steve Guttenberg, he said he assumed most would use a pre before the amp. I think that's how he reviewed it as well. In any case, after struggling for a while to find good volume settings on my pre (Schiit Freya +) and the Elekit, I decided to try plugging directly into the Elekit (didn't do this first because my interconnects are hard to access). Big improvement: less noise, more detail, better soundstage, etc. So now I've put an order in for a Decware switchbox. I also find that running the amp on the 8 ohm setting sounds better driving my 4 ohm rated speakers (Tekton Electron SEs, 98db sensitivity) than when the amp is on the 4 ohm setting. Thanks for the review and interested to hear what others think of this amp.

For those tube rollers out there - just put an RCA 7025 tube in the center spot (12AX7) on the Elekit 8600 and it sounds great. Had a Genelex in prior that I liked but the RCA is a bit more detailed through the frequency range and airy without sounding brittle up top. Highly recommended!

Can we expect a new review from you soon? Cheers

Nice review. I was very impressed with this unit myself.

Nice review! The Component Research caps sound great. I have the same amp and ended up using Jupiter caps which sound lovely. I'm loving it with my Heresy speakers. And I was wondering how they would sound with the Cornwalls so this was a really useful review. I'm between CWIV, La Scala, and some other custom horn speakers. Did you not get the Lundahl power supply upgrade? It's a real game changer.

Thanks for doing this video!

Being you have your baseline result you can experiment with changing the 12AX7 and AU7 tubes. I found switching my stock Primaluna AU7 tubes to Gold Lion reissues gave my amp far more depth in the sound, almost holographic.

Thanks for the video!! I wonder if the sound would benefit from a dead neutral preamp like a Benchmark or something cheaper, like a Topping Pre-90. Strongly considering this amp for La Scala II’s but also feel the pull for a Nelson pass design like amp camp mono locks or an F6 clone.

Very good review. I was wondering. Can my Totem Arro speakers work with this amp because of the 87 dB sensitivity? Kind regards, Leon, The Netherlands. Frequency Response 40 Hz - 20 kHz ± 3 dB. Impedance 4 ohms. Crossover Frequency 2.4 kHz, 2nd order, Linkwitz-Riley (optimized) Recommended Power 20 - 80 W. Sensitivity 87 dB

Did anyone actually put a scope on this amp instead of just guessing? Bode plot, FFT's? Geeze! You can get impedance plots of Cornwalls, did you check them?

Did you go for the Lundahl output transformers?

👍❤️❤️🫂🫂

too much talking...