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!

Beatles Mono Box Set listener review

Let me start with WOW and continue on.  I am amazed at the stuff that the stereo mix of the early LPs hide!  Some of the music behind the scenes is sort of hidden by the stereo mix.  I get a larger sense of the musicality of the Beatles from the mono mixes of the songs.

I decided to use my Qinpu tube amp and my PSB Alpha T-1 speakers to hear the most from these CDs.  I am amazed at how front and center the sound is!  I am very happy that I got the mono box set instead of the stereo one!  How revealing, I am hearing things that I never heard on their songs before; and I am a HUGE Beatles fan, and have listened to these songs at least 1,000 times each before! 

Instead of the opposing vocals responses being in the other channel, they are behind the vocals.  I am impressed and what a difference in the interpretation that the listener would get from experiencing these songs the way that George Martin and the Beatles meant them to be heard.

Why CD and not the LP box set.  I do not wish to have these wear out from playing them a hundred times each, LP is still a fragile format and I would only get the LP box set after acquiring the CD box set to listen to over and over.  To pull out the LP mono box set would be a special treat and I may only listen to it a half a dozen times or so as that special treat! 

I love LPs, however I understand their limits, and each time you play them you wear them out just a little bit.  I do love things that last forever, thus the CD box set.

I also feel there is less distortion in the output in the mono versions.  I have noticed, now after hearing the mono versions, that there is a bit of strain as the mix equalizes the channels in volume and makes the vocals sound a bit strained.

Highly recommended!  Best in class!  I have acquired the Meet the Beatles US release in original mono on LP and I am very excited to listen to it when it comes with my Grado mono cartridge.  I will listen to it on the Tube Amp and PSB combination and compare.


It may be time to get a higher end Mono cartridge.  I like my Moving Coil Denon cartridge for Stereo, I should get something just as good for Mono.



Keep Listening!

Jeff

Qinpu 2.5Wpc Flea-Watt Tube Amp and PSB speakers

I love having options!  I took this little Qinpu Flea-Watt amp at 2.5 Watts Per Channel on vacation to drive a set of Polk mini-monitors.  It did a great job!  It went quite loud and sounded quite good.  I use this amp at home usually to drive some Paradigm mini-monitor V.5s.  It again, does a great job.  However I installed banana plugs today on my speaker connectors for two of my speakers, (One set of my speakers does not recommend banana clips when bi-amping), and I moved the speaker wires from the Paradigm to the PSB Image 6Ts.  It sounds awesome!

The banana plugs make moving the speaker connections just about as easy as using a speaker selector switch, with no electronics in between.  I will listen and see at some point if there is a difference in sound when connecting my speakers directly to the amps and moving the wires instead of using the Adcom speaker selector switch that I have hooked up to two of my amps currently.  I have been using the speaker selector switch for some time now.

I was surprised by the amazing sound earlier this year when I used the Qinpu with the PSBs so I decided to re-visit the combination in case I was just dreaming.  I was not, the sound is quite excellent, albeit not very loud coming from this combination.  I listened to a couple records and so far have been very impressed with the depth and sweetness of the sound.  At lower than loud volume levels the sound is captivating, nice and warm and very revealing.  Quite a bit of bass from this little amp!  The highs are sweet and solid, and not too bright; I was worried about the sound being too bright from this low power amp.

I am going to listen to the combination of the Qinpu and the PSBs for a week or so and see if I still think it is sweet sounding.  As of today, I think it sounds just a little bit better than my McIntosh MC250, which sounds pretty nice with the PSBs.



Thanks
Jeff


Update 03/23/13:
This little tube amp has impressed me so very much and turned me onto tube technology.  I decided to upgrade to a more powerful tube amplifier, the new one has 7 wpc.  This Quinpu amp will be moved to my office and travel with me as my vacation amp as it is an awesome little amp!  Beware, this is a gateway drug type of device, once you hear it you will be amazed at the detail and great sound this little amp gives at modest volumes.  Well worth the price at $150.

Take a stereo on vacation?

Yes, I take a stereo and a radio on my vacations.  I alter what I take based on who I am traveling with and where I am going.  I find that having music available to be played at a decent, good sounding volume level is a necessity when traveling.  I was able to get a couple days of listening in on both of my summer vacations this year.  I get a bit tired of only having the music they play on the radio in northern Michigan and need a variety!  I also take one of my Zenith Trans Oceanic radios, either the 3000-1 or the 7000 series radios.  I like the reception from both of them as I can pick up AM and SW from all over the place! 

When I go up north to the cabin I take my small flea-watt amp and a pair of Polk mini-monitors to listen to.  Placement of the speakers is a bit of a pain in the butt.  I choose the Polk's as they are front ported and can be placed up against a wall, if necessary.  I use my laptop with a music streamer DAC to play the music.  I find the sound pretty good for such a smallish setup.  The 2.5 Watts of the tube amp play the Polk's to a pretty decent sound level.  The sound is pretty good too! 

When I travel with my best friend to play video games and listen to music up north in a house we rent. I take my Sherwood 70WPC integrated amplifier and my pair of Paradigm Mini Monitor V.5s with a pair of stands.   I also bring my laptop and the music streamer, of course.  I find the sound pretty satisfying and it goes quite loud.

I have relegated the Sherwood to duty in my garage system, so I cannot bring it this year.  What I am going to do this year on guy's weekend is take the Paradigm's, a pair of stands, my Hafler pre-amp and my Parasound HCA-800II power amp.  I still plan to bring the laptop, but I want to be able to choose other sources like when I take the Sherwood.  I don't want to be switching cables all over the place, so I will take a couple decent cables to connect media players to the pre-amp and play different types of music than what I have on my laptop.  I expect the sound to be vastly improved as the Parasound is a very clean sounding amp, it is newer and it has 100WPC.  I certainly won't be able to turn it up all the way with the Paradigms, but with their decent efficiency they should go quite loud and sound very clean! 

What do I listen to when I travel?  I try and switch it up a bit, so I listen to some old Jazz, Rock, Soul, Funk, R&B, and Oldies.  I have some old radio shows that I have recorded over the years and they are fun to listen to as I have digitized them.  I have also digitized some of my old Cassette tapes that I made years and years ago.  I did this to basically be able to listen to them for years to come as cassette lifespan varies from brand to brand of tape.  I have music recorded on old El-cheapo tape, but mostly I have the old Memorex tapes then I upgraded to using Maxell High-bias tapes , some TDK's and Sony's along with some Scotch and Denon tapes that I started using when I realized that they would last longer.  Quite a bit of my tape collection is over 30 years old and they still play.  I bought a Nakamichi CR-1A tape deck a few years back to allow me to record from these old tapes.  I still had the first tape deck I purchased until a couple years ago, but it wasn't even that good when I bought it.  I plan to digitize my tape collection over the next few years.  That will take a while as I have hundreds of tapes. 

Why do I take a stereo on vacation?  Pure enjoyment!  I have found that I am less stressed out when I get some listening time every couple days.  Otherwise I get crabby and I am in a hurry to get home.  Listening to music is one of my favorite things in this world!  Thank you to all who make music, without it life would certainly suck a whole lot more!

Keep Listening!

Jeff

Record Cleaning Machine versus Tube Amp

I have been wanting to get my hands on a 10+ watt per channel (WPC) stereo tube amplifier.  I have also wanted to get my hands on a decent record cleaning machine.  The question has been, which do I want more?  The cost for the inexpensive Spin-Clean record cleaning system is less than an inexpensive 10+ WPC tube amp, but I still cannot make up my mind.

The Spin-Clean is a manual record cleaning solution which has been receiving great reviews from all over the web.  I see it for sale for $79, and I see the deluxe pack for $129.  When I did the math, the $129 was a nice price for all the extras you receive when you purchase it that way.

An inexpensive stereo tube amp, which has the desired power can run around $300.  When I do my search I see the vintage tube amps being sold.  I have been wondering about one.  My friend mentioned a couple things, vintage does mean old and it will need to have some work done under the hood.  Plus, am I certain that it is not a fire hazard?  He also mentioned something about the quality of the output transformers.

The sweet sound of nice and clean records will make my system sound awesome when playing records.  However, it could sound sweet all the time I am listening if I choose to add a tube amp to my system.  I currently have a flea-watt tube amp, 2.5 WPC.  Most people would be surprised as to how nicely it plays through even decent sized speakers.  I have some PSB Image Ts and the sound was impressive and actually is what convinced me in the first place to get more watts to see how nice a tube with some decent power would sound. 

Back to the record cleaning machine.  I listen to LPs nearly daily and when my mother asked me today how many LPs I have, I estimated it at around 1,000.  It would take a while to get them all cleaned, but I would use a label to identify on my plastic liners which records had been cleaned.  From what I have read this device makes quite a difference in any except machine cleaned records.

Right now I use a 4-brush wet method for cleaning my LPs.  I use an anti-static brush to loosen the dirt, then I go over it with a discwasher brush.  Then, if needed I will spray some awesome cleaning solution that I currently use, (Smart, available at www.needledoctor.com).  I then use my flat, felt pad to spread out the liquid on the surface.  Then I use the four Discwasher brushes, the newer ones are a different, more absorbent material than the original, so I start with that one.  Then I move on from the most to least aggressive brush.  Afterward it takes around 5 minutes for the liquid to evaporate.  Some records only need the first two brushes and no wet cleaning, others are very dirty.

So you can see the positive attributes of either acquisition.  I am still pondering which I will do.  I will have to make up my mind soon!


Any Opinions?





Keep Listening!

Jeff

Vibration Absorption - The inexpensive way!

I was listening at club level volume at home one day and something that had never happened before occured.  The CD player skipped.  I had never had that happen before and it scared the heck out of me!  I thought maybe the CD was messed up, something had scratched it or it was dirty.  I inspected the CD and it was clean as can be. I take very good care of my media!  At that point I started considering that maybe my old player had seen better days and it was malfunctioning.  I took a look and everything seemed to be good, I played several more CDs that day and I was happy with the result, there were no more skips.  So I pulled that near perfect CD and placed it on the disposal pile and went about my week.  The next change I had to play the stereo at 11 was a couple weeks later.  I was cranking some 80s Hair band rock and it skipped again.  At the volume level that I had been listening to it was quite startling! Inspection revealed that this CD was nearly perfect too.

I was trying to determine what my course of action was, because I was pretty sure that the CD player was dying.  I found it quite strange that both 'skips" happened during very loud playback.  Before the first listening session where the skip occurred, I changed the location of quite a bit of my gear and moved it to a lower rack on a wood cabinet.  I noticed that it was right in the dispersion field of the speaker that I was using when this happened.  Hmmmmm......

Vibration!  Oh no!  I started looking on Ebay, Audiogon, checked out my local stereo store and read some articles on vibration control.  I was bummed because the cost of even a modest vibration control scheme, was like $50 and they ranged to the hundreds of dollars to treat more than one device.  So, I decided that I would go down a different route to eliminate the vibration.  If the device cannot move, it should vibrate a bit less, so I added 10 pounds to the top of the CD player, in the form of a dumbbell.  It worked!  At least it stopped skipping during the very loud passages.  I am not going to claim that I heard sonic signatures from the vibrations that I know were still attacking the component.  I just did not know what my inexpensive options were.

I have a fellow audiophile friend and we visit each others' houses to do listening and to learn about new music that either of us have discovered, or re-discovered.  He has a smallish listening room with a bunch of speakers mounted on the same shelves as his components.  We were in there for hours listening to all his components, through various speakers, quite loud too, and not a single piece of equipment did so much as hiccup in all that time and as loud as it was playing.  I was pretty impressed, so I spoke about my experience with the skipping of the CD with him and he agreed it was vibration that most likely caused the issue.  So I asked him how the heck he was able to have all his gear co-exist on the same shelving structure as some of his speakers.

He Showed Me!

I was floored, what an awesome solution that never even crossed my mind!  I figured that if it worked for him it would work for me since my equipment is at least physically isolated from the sound source and not sitting together.  I went to my local sporting goods store and purchased a large pack of a dozen racquetballs, yes racquetballs!  He told me to cut them in half along the mold line which is straight and use them like a cup and put each under the feet of the desired component to absorb vibration coming from the room, the furniture and some of the vibration coming from the speakers.  I did this and have not had a single problem with skipping CDs since, and I have listened quite loudly since.  Plus I got rid of the dumbbell.

I found this "tweak" to be one of the most effective and cost-efficient methods out there to control vibration, which is the enemy of your components, and can cause issues with the sound.  The cost was $12.99 for 12 balls.  When you consider that I can cut them in half and put them under 6 components for that price, it truely is the cheapest thing going! 

I have used my first dozen balls up, so it is time to buy some more.  I have placed them under my solid state and tube amps, my CD Player, my home theater receiver, and my preamp, I will probably use them in my other systems in time. 

Again, I am not going to say that I heard more detail, better sound or any of that malarky, although it could be true, I just have not noticed.  I am just resting assured that the vibration control will allow me a few things, the ability to play my system very loud, to protect the sound from being altered by all the vibration, and it should help my tubes last longer as they are not being assaulted by vibration when being used.

Unless you point it out, no one notices.

Keep Listening!

Jeff

McIntosh Preamp derailed?

Over the past few months I have been considering upgrading my Pre-amp.  I am currently running a Yamaha C-70 Preamp.  This is a very nice and quite capable preamp.  It has dual phono inputs, which to me is essential; it allows me to choose what source to record from so I can listen to other material while I record something from another source.  It is way cool; it also has an equalizer, which I seldom use to shape the sound.  It has lots of gain as well, which I seldom use as I have my amps set to 11.  The preamp needs to be warmed up to perform properly since it sits in a cold basement.  I have been considering changing this unit out for some time and I have been looking at McIntosh C-33 preamp as the model I will most like to acquire.  They are expensive, and could cost me around a thousand dollars.  I will be saving for a long time to get one!

Meet the challenger, a $150 - 2.5 watt per channel, flea-watt tube amp.  I acquired it a year or so ago and I was using it in my office system powering some Polk mini speakers.  Yesterday, I was going through my connections and labeling any changes that I had made when I noticed that I had one vacant input on my amplifier switch.  I was thinking at first that I could get something cool to fill that opening.  I walked into my office and saw the little guy and thought that I would like to hear it with those new PSB 6T speakers that I had purchased recently.  So I disconnected it from the few cables connecting it to my office system and moved it to the other room.  (You would not believe how nice it is to have amplifier options!).

While I was looking around for spare speaker cable, which I am nearly out of, I discovered one very long piece of a home-made speaker cable that I started to make a while back.  I made three of them and finished two, which have been in service for some time.  These speaker wires are made of Category 5e, solid-strand data cable.  I used some of my old cabling tricks to ensure that I had a nick-free cable end.  I used shrink tubing to ensure a neat and tidy end and marked which side would be positive.  I feel these are awesome cables, as inside there are 4-pairs of wires, and each twisted with each other and the other 3 pairs to eliminate EMI interference in data transmission.  Well, I could not see how I could miss since the signals that are sent to your speakers aren't really that much different than the impulses that network equipment sent over them.  Plus, the side benefit, there are eight 24-gauge solid copper strands in each cable.   I used one cable (all 8 strands), for the positive and one for the negative, sure I could have split out 2-pairs (4 wires) for positive and negative, but I decided the benefit might be lost and there might not be the same sound if I use the same cable for both.  So I cut the large cable in half, prepared all four ends on each and I was ready about a half-hour later!

So I connected the 2.5 watt flea amp to my system and ran a dual connector from one of my outputs from the pre-amp and hooked it up.  I connected the speaker terminals to my amplifier switch and I was ready for some listening.  I figured, since the PSB speakers have an efficiency rating of 89, they may not work very well with this low powered amplifier.  I powered off the McIntosh and powered up the flea-watt amp. I was wrong.  I could not believe the sound coming from this little amp and those speakers.  I was quite surprised, so I put on a familiar recording, INXS – Kick, and listened to the entire recording.  WOW!  I did not just hear things I had not noticed before, it was like the speakers become 10 times larger and the sound enveloped the room. Now, this will not play especially loud with these few watts, but it goes louder than I thought it would!  I know It probably sounds ridiculous, but come on over and check it out for yourself if you are skeptical.  This little stereo amp is, using my friend’s standard, not even an especially good cheap one.  It has one tube, which is a triode tube I believe, and does the work of a set of tubes, and an electronic board which eliminates the need for one tube as well is built into this little amp.  Most of the better, inexpensive tube amps have two or more tubes doing all the jobs that get the signal from your source to your speakers for better overall sound and a pure tube-based signal path. 

How did this de-rail the McIntosh Preamp?  Well, since I have a darn good preamp now, I may wait for it to die (if it ever does), and pick up a medium range tube amp as one of my amplifier options.  I have been looking around and I may buy an inexpensive, vintage amp with 10 - 50 watts to replace my flea-watt amp, (which I will probably give to my brother to make a believer out of him).  If the sound is this awesome with a cheap tube-amp how much better will it be with a more-expensive, better designed piece of tube gear? 

I intend to find out!  What are your thoughts?

Keep listening and keep that stress down!

Jeff

Update 03/23/13:
Still no McIntosh Preamp. I would call that derailed.  :(