DarTZeel Preamp

Hooper: I absolutely disagree with you about there being a mismatch with the Wilson Alexandria. The darTZeel drives them incredibly well. Please read:

http://6moons.com/audioreviews/dartzeel/108.html

Mike Malinowski had the same exact amplifier that Jeff Friz used for his review. His experience was totally different, and I know why. Mr. Malinowski states, "Break-in: The 108 needs break-in. Let me rephrase that. It requires a metric ton of break-in. My break-in procedure is very simple. Place product in the equipment chain, listen for a short time, leave it running and leave for days. Come back, listen and repeat the process until the sound stops changing. My unit was not new. It was a review sample forwarded from another industry reviewer. For this piece, it took 2.5 weeks of continuous playing in addition to whatever the previous reviewer had put on it to arrive at sonic stability. It would have been an unforgivable mistake to evaluate this amp before then."

I refered to this in my response to Frank in my previous reply. I do not mean to be reduntant or even reduntant.

Frank; i hope all is well with you.

no amp is perfect to all ears or in all systems. and all the amps discussed in this thread are very good.

regarding Mr. Fritz's review of the darTZeel NHB-108; Mr. Fritz did not say that the darTZeel was not a good amp, but that for it's price it was not competitive with two other references that he has on his speakers; that it was not 'special' enough sounding and lacked dynamics.

i had two issues with Mr. Fritz's conclusions.

1. Soundstage asked the darTZeel importer for an amp to review. at that time all the demos were loaned out but the importer did have a brand new one that he could send along.....but.....it would require a 30 DAY BREAKIN for it to sound correct. Soundstage agreed to spend the time for that breakin....as they were anxious to get the darTZeel amp.

in the past all the darTZeel amps were burned in for 30 days at the factory...and no additional breakin was required. when the importer ordered 30 of the things at once the factory was not able to burn all these in at once and so the importer agreed to pass on the info to darTZeel owners. the importer had been careful to only send out broken in darts for demo.

2. the older draTZeel amps had no automatic DC compensation. it needed to be adjusted by hand once put into a system. with the new run of amps (with a 'B' designation in their serial number) the amps do have automatic DC compensation. unfortunately, the amps don't sound nearly as good when this auto circut is engaged. there is a jumper that allows you to turn off DC compensation.

the importer asked Soundstage to call him ONCE BREAKIN WAS COMPLETE to get instructions about turning off the DC compensation.

i have had 5 different darTZeels in my room....one of the orginals and 4 of the new version. i have broken in 4 new darTZeel's and turned of the DC compensation in each. the performance is really dramatically different in terms of refinement, noisefloor, and textural nuance when the DC compensation is turned off. at 30 days the amp 'gets its legs' in terms dynamic grip and low frequency weight.

Mr. Fritz had the darTZeel for 2 weeks and did not play it continuously. he never checked back with the importer for information. he was not impressed....which is understandable. i had the same initial experience with the dart. i listened to a new dart for about a week and then went back to my Tenor Hybrids. a month later i tried the darTzeel again.....only this time i kept using it. the improvement was not gradual....all of a sudden at about 30 days the thing stood up and came alive. i called the importer and then he told me to defeat the DC auto compensation.

the amp was a different animal.

Jeff Fritz wrote what he heard; no one questions that. but, what he heard was not what the darTZeel amp is about.

the same amp that had gone to Mr. Fritz next went to Mike Malinowski of Stereo Times. Mike also has X-2's. Mike loved the darTZeel, wrote a review, and bought the damn thing.

the darTzeel amp is not perfect, and not for everyone. but it is very special.

and then we get to the dart preamp.....WOW!

jeez, you guys all need therapy!

Can we go back to discussing the preamp now?

Jtinn:

The Malinowski review is quite interesting--and heartening to an owner of the DarTZeel amp. I'm a little surprised that Mike had such good results with the X-2, since mine with the Maxx2s was less than impressive. I chalked it up to the impedence dips in the speaker, but perhaps I was wrong. Maybe the amp wasn't broken in. Who knows? I've been wrong enough times to fill the Grand Canyon.