It's upgrade/mod time...

This is my el-cheapo tube amp. Anybody knows what can be upgraded/moded by looking at the picture? This amp use 4 x EL84 and 2 x 6N1.


Front...


Rear...

change the ALPS to step attenuator. more transparent and better imaging.

good luck with your quest bro, all the best.
if you know what to change already i can solder it for you.

wow i alo never open my before..
so is this cal point to point???
r this tube use the quality ic n cap or just normal/cheapo??

Based on the price, I bet they are all el-cheapo stuff
Yeah that's P2P. No PCB in sight.

Anyway, I've communicated to Mr. Oh and he suggested I change the 4 white color caps to Solen. Gonna find time going over to his place. Suddenly I got busy...sigh.

Arremie,

R u sure u want solen as coupling cap?

For me I will save my money for other things....

is that an audioromy m84?

noodle, I have no knowledge at all about what's good or not. If you say Solen is not worth it then please share why. Appreciate your suggestion if any other than Solen (but within the reasonable price) comes to your mind.

Mr. Oh also suggested using Audio Note copper in oil capacitor but at about RM1.5k for 4 caps + labour, it just doesn't justify to do so unless I have a RM10k amp.

drife, it's Msaudio MS-66 but you know China tube amp all look alike

Arremie,

If I were u, I will not mod the amp.

1) it's not worth while to put so much money to mod the amp. If u mod it u may ended up paying twice the price of the amp. Yet it got no resell value.

2) u may use your money to buy a good DAC . It may better improve your sound.

3) have u really push your system to the limit? Try to tune up your system to the max first b4 decide to mod any of your equipment. Pls never ever mod your speaker.

4) save up your money n knowladge to buy your dream amp like CJ, Audio Note, krell and etc...

Cheers,
Cheers,

Duh...I thought you have better suggestion on parts. That ideas of your anybody also can come up with that. Do you think I don't know all that?

I wanted to mod because it's fun and interesting. I want to see how good a cheap amp can be if we give it a tweak here and there.

Ok back to topic. Appreciate if anybody else has some input for "PARTS". That should be obvious I think

Noodle / Arremie....

A casual acquintance of mine who happens to have a China Made DAC which he bought for peanuts and went on to change the CAPS, Resistors and the RCA connectors to a better make.

He claims its a totally different animal after the modding, sounding with more ooompppph.... . But he did spend a fair bit on the mods.

The likely choice for an upgrade would be the CAPS, Resistors and the Transformer. These are basically the main components in a P2P tube amplifier.

cheers

Remy,

May I know how much you wish to invest on this mod quest of yours?
Why not change the 2 transformers of yours since it give some "krrrr krrr" noise?

if you end up needing 1.5K for the mod, erm I guess some here would advice you to get a better amp.

wingman, I agreed. Properly done (and not overboard) will yield a satisfactory result. Which one are the resistors? Sorry my electronic knowledge is crappy.

finger, the sound is no more. 1st time I believed I got a lemon unit. After changed to new unit its no longer a problem. Changing transformers is not an option for me. Better one is bigger in size and will not fit into the casing. Not gonna spend 1.5k for it bro. The Solen is only RM160 for 4 caps + labor. So I can spend a few hundreds more for anything else than can be upgraded.

Its often various opinions will be posted here which heavily depends on one's own individual experience, expectations and personal preferences. If someone have been delving or fooling around mostly with high end (or high quality and expensive) gear, then that individual may look down or shun entry level or "cheap" capacitors, because they're already at a level where these cheap or economy parts do not or will never reach their level of expectation compared to some boutique Audionote, Jensen, Mundorf or other exotic parts costing an arm and leg.
Having said this, there's no objecting anyone from buying some entry level gear and modding them with boutique parts to create another animal altogether. Its also quite true that many pricy boutique parts can do justice to an amplifier. Technical skill and experience is also needed to synergise certain parts that perform best in certain stages to achieve the required result. You can put FULL of boutique parts in an already lousy designed circuit, it certainly not going to evolve to an Audio Research amplifier beater. There's a lot of factors that can limit or benefit the use of boutique parts in a given amplifier.
Whether RM1.5k for PIO or Rm160 for some Solens, thats your call how much you'd want to spend. Its your money.
For me I'm quite happy with a very old pair of vintage and replacing with Solen caps did no real harm nor broke the bank. Even my TT PSU have a couple of Solens inside it (but for a very different purpose. I'm NOT a person who'd frequently sit in front of a system trying to do a thorough analysis of what is still defecient in the soundstaging or imaging whilst dreaming of acquiring better parts to improve it further and further, nor to impress on anyone else for that matter.

Arremie.....

The blue components with multi-coloured stripes. The transformers can be swapped to a "toroidial tranny", seen some units at Pasar road ( various sizes ) ... check out the dimensions to see which unit fits. You may need some adjustments to fit the tranny.

Modding the Amp in stages would be a good move, evaluate the sonics before / after each mod and after the break in period .

cheers

Thanks wingman. I'm gonna start with Solen caps. If the result is positive then I will look at other area for the next mod.

If I may ask, what's so special about this Toroidal transformer? Is it power trans or output trans?

Arremie,

If u really want to mod your amp n get fun of it, u may just take out the 4 caps n measure where the outer foil is. Put outer foil to signer output. I don't think the manufacturer have done that. This will improve your sound.

Want to change cap, vcap copper Teflon r the best but price way too high. Normally we put solen in the power supply not signal coupling cap...
U may try obligato cap n mcap supreme. They r not too expensive.

U may change your RCA soket to switch craft. Change all cathod bypass cap to black gate n series.

Do change it 1 by 1, n let it run in n value the mod bring any improvement to u before mod again, if no good take it out....

Happy modding.....

noodle, now you talking. Thanks a lot man. I'm taking my amp to Mr. Oh this Friday and gonna shoot him will all this ideas.

Yeah will do this one step at a time. This gonna be fun and good experience for novice like me

Upgrade done. The 4 caps have been replace with Cornell Dubilier instead of original plan to use Solen. 2 of the original caps used back as bypass (no idea what has been bypass and for what purpose).



New caps...


Original caps used for bypass...


Before upgrade amp simply sounded flat no umphh whatsoever but MS-12B preamp makes it sounded good.

After upgrade the amp sounded good by itself without the need to hook up MS-12B. Very details and precise now. It is still a bit bright (edgy?) and the bass kinda lacking a bit. Hopefully it will be better once I put 50 or more hours into it.

All in all I like what I'm hearing. This is a good upgrade that doesn't cost me any arm or leg.

Arremie....

Good to know that the upgrade turned out to your expectations.

Could it be possible that the "bypass" may have trigerred it to be "edgy" or was it "edgy" from day one.

Putting in the hours may possibly "round" of the "edgy corners" and suggest you enquire on why the bypass was needed.

cheers

The sound getting much better after the 1st hour and I ended up listening to it for 6 straight hours last night. It sounded really sweet now and only by itself without any external preamp and still using stock China tubes. I always wonder what is the sound like when people say "musical sounding". Maybe this is it. Hard to stop listening to it.

I sense myself will sell the MS-12B preamp soon lol

Just some suggestion to get it to be more musical.
1. Replace resistors to boutique brands from Kiwame, or Riken ohm carbon types. However, these are not exactly cheap and have to be imported. But the real science to modding tube circuitry like this is where to use and what to use. OTH, install/refurbish the whole lot with one boutique brand resistors into an amp may not really achieve desired results. Its often mix and match may achieve better results. There's also some fundamentals as what NOT to use in certain area. There's always an element of touch or miss and to ones own personal preference. This is ideal if owner is handy at tube electronics, able to self-mod and experiment (with parts in hand) modding stage by stage, and closely monitoring the results after each mod. Lugging it along for someone to do every time isn't exactly fun.
2. Replace the EL84 tubes to JJ brand. These are excellent EL84 tubes IMHO. I personally use them exclusively in this case.

I already tried JJ. In fact it was the first tube I rolled but too bad the sound is not to my liking. Too forward sounding.

Currently waiting for Mullard EL84 (new production). If I don't like it then maybe will try Russian 6P14P-ER. For sure I'm not gonna spend fortune for NOS. If all doesn't work then I guess I just get a bunch of China EL84 and stick with it