Tube Mania - Musical Paradise MP-301 MK3 Tube Amplifier Review

I just acquired a new tube amp.  It is a Musical Paradise MP301-MK3.  It sounds great, you may be surprised like I was how great 6.5 watts of tube power sounds!  If you have read any of my posts, I love variety.  This amp is right up my alley!

This amp takes tubes.  Two different sets, one set is for power and the other is the pre-amplification tubes.  Both type of tubes can make a difference in how the music sounds.  The maker of this amp has made it quite flexible with both sets of tubes.  Lots of variety!

This little amp takes four tubes, like I said a pair of power tubes and a set of preamp tubes.  Here is a list of the power tubes that it accepts:

6P3P, 6L6, KT66, 5881, EL34, 6CA7, KT77, KT88, 6550

Here is a list of the pre-amp tubes that it accepts:

6SJ7, 5693, 6SK7, 6SD7, 6J8P, 6*8

WOW!

So far I have indulged myself and purchased a few sets of tubes.  I have his this amp less than two weeks and I am on my third trade of tubes.  Why?  I am trying to eliminate the tubes that suck from my growing stockpile of tubes.  I have purchased a set of RCA preamp tubes from the early 1960s.  As much as I would love to use a glass-tube in this application, the RCA 6SK7 tube is rated very high and quite inexpensive! However they are metal tubes and black and not as cool looking as a glass tube with the heater showing.  I was able to get my first set for $7!  They were matched!  I was very hopeful, and when they arrived I changed out the stock Chinese tubes that came with the amp.  I am listening right now to those RCA metal tubes.  The system sounds very good!

So far I have purchased a matched set of Mullard EL34 tubes, three matched sets of the RCA 6SK7s that I mentioned above, a matched Quad (Which is four tubes with the same electrical ratings when tested) of these Russian 6L6 tubes for a really good price, a matched quad of ITT 6SJ7GT tubes, a matched pair of Tung Sol 5881s, a set of Sovietek 6550s.  I find that I liked the RCA so much that I found and purchased two more matched sets.  

So far I have about 40 hours of running time on this amp and from what I hear it will sound even better going forward.  Moving around the tubes has been enjoyable as I get to sit and do some intense listening to see what I feel about the sound of each set of tubes that I install.  

I found these el-cheapo Russian 6L6 power tubes for $15 for four of them, all new and matched!  I was pretty surprised at the price and that shipping was not jacked up to make up for the low price.  Nope, shipping was reasonable, 14-day return policy too.  How could I go wrong with a deal like that?  I got them Friday and put them in place of the Mullard EL34s I was running in it.  They sound mighty respectable with no burn-in time.  I am hoping to find them a good enough sounding tube that I will get another matched quad of these tubes for day to day driving.  Special days I will do some tube swapping. I checked for background noise and these tubes had not raised the noise floor.  I can hear the amp when nothing is running with a very faint hiss.  I am working on eliminating this.

I had a big problem with hum when I first got this amp and set it up.  I was able to get it under control using a method a friend advise I try.  I do not recommend this at home unless you or someone you know is knowledgeable about such things.  I removed the grounding pin from the computer cord that I use to connect this to power and added a three-plug to two-plug adapter.  I started with it in the normal configuration and I still heard the hum, but when I powered it down and turned the plug over and essentially plugged it in upside down the hum was totally gone, replaced with a very faint hiss type sound.  This I can live with until I can reduce it further, but now is the area with diminishing returns occur.  The effort to eliminate that little bit of hiss will cost quite a bit of time, and I have actually made it worse messing with things in the past.

Well, I wanted a variety and I wanted to tinker, woohoo!

I will post a review at some point in the future.  

Keep on Listening!


Jeff


Here is a link to what I now own and am loving so far!  

http://www.musicalparadise.ca/store/index.php?route=product/product&path=59&product_id=54

Update 1/25/15:
This little amp is awesome.  I am running some EL34s in it right now and listening to it in the background.  Excellent build quality, I have had it for a couple years now and have had zero issues with it.  I think that I like the power and sound of the KT88 tubes in it.  I like 5881s, and the EL34s too!  Really worth the money, in my opinion.

Update 12/11/15:
Nightly driver amp, runs nice, trouble-free.  I am running some Tung-Sol 5881s in it now, along with some metal RCA preamp tubes.  It sounds excellent, very reliable and I have used it for probably a few thousand hours easily by now.  I run it every night as my bedroom system, so it gets 6 - 8 hours a night of use.  Still highly recommended!  My only wish is that it could be bridged mono and I could pair a couple up as a stereo system, it would be awesome!