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Any other Sophia Amplifier Experiences???

Sophia Amplifiers
I’ve been having a lot of problems with my Sophia 845 91-05 amplifiers. They are the top of the line units that Sophia makes that retail for 20K USD. I got them used from Jay at audio revelation for a reasonable deal. I had them for about 2 months and they blew an AC transformer. I sent them to a local tech who has a very good reputation who diagnosed them and ended up fixing them. Sophia did not help out with the repair at all, Jay was quite upset when they charged 400USD for a simple transformer. 2 months later and I blow the same transformer. Again the same tech does the diagnosis and Sophia says that I should get 2 transformers as the new ones are slightly different. Richard at Sophia says he will give me half off if I buy 2. I agree and my tech installs 2 of the trannies. Another couple of months go by and another one of them blows. It has been the same tranny every time but alternating between amps, the AC1 tranny which supplies the 5Z3PAT tube filaments at 5 volts/3amps and the plates on the 6au4 half wave rectifiers. This time I am worried that maybe there is something wrong with my supply so I buy a regenerator. I still have one of the old working trannies and I install that one. Everything works fine for a little over a month and now I have blown another one! The last remaining new one just went, not the old one that I just put in. Richard at Sophia has been very difficult to deal with, he won’t even entertain the idea that there is something wrong with the transformers. I’m not a wealthy individual and this has been a huge strain financially and emotionally. I have numerous other amps that I run including a pair of 300B’s that I built and they all work fine, I have never blown another transformer on one of the other amps. The thing is my speakers work the best with these 845 amps and I love the way they sound. I just want them to work. I’m at a bit of a loss of what to do next….thinking about trying another brand of transformer in there. I sent Richard a message about 4 days ago requesting the specs and he has not responded. Apparently he is out of the country at trade shows according to the response from Sue at Sophia. I can’t imagine he isn’t checking his email!!! Has anybody else had problems with Sophia amps? Any ideas on what I should do? Does anyone know what the spec would be to the plate of a 6au4?
analogluvr
mt10425
1,138 posts
 
'I think people should know what kind of service they can expect if they choose to buy Sophia.'
Do you even read what you write? I'm not a Sophia apologist. I do own and like my amp(s) from Sophia and have not had any issues with reliability. I hope you get yours fixed.
1. It was purchased used.
2. People other than Sophia have worked on it.
3. Take tjassoc post seriously.
People here always get spun when threads ask for experienced responses and get folks who no knowledge of the equipment.
lse
83 posts
 
What's this about blowing trannies? Risky behavior.
analogluvr OP
859 posts
 
We used protection!!!!
analogluvr OP
859 posts
 
Ok does anybody have sophia 845s that work properly without any trouble? I know my amps are quite rare.
analogluvr OP
859 posts
 
So just an update on my Sophia 845 amplifiers.  After I blew another one of Sophia's crappy transformers my friend convinced me to replace them with equivalents from Hammond. So I bought 4 transformers from Hammond (2 high voltage and 2 low voltage filament ones). My 4 transformers from Hammond cost me just under $200 USD while one of the crappy Chinese Sophia ones is $400USD. And the Hammond ones are far heavier and just all round better built. So at first I only changed out one amp so I would see if there was any sonic difference and to see how things would go. Things worked great and I could hear no difference between the modified amp and the factory one. Well after about 2 months I blew another tranny!  Any idea which one??  You guessed it, the crappy Chinese Sophia. So I swapped out that one for 2 hammonds and things have been working great for over a year now. And when I investigated the blown transformers it was always the filament winding that was an open circuit. They did get pretty warm so we speculate that the inner 5 volt winding expanded and contracted at different rates than the outer 1100 volt winding. Seems like a bit of chintzy corner cutting to incorporate 2 into 1 on a 20k amplifier!
anyhow things are working great now and I love the way they sound. And in response to the suggestion that I should send them to Sophia to get fixed, I can predict exactly what would have happened. They would have put one of their new crappy Chinese transformers in there, it would have blown in a month or 2, and the second time that happened they would have said it is a problem with the power in my home and washed their hands of it. They were already saying that without seeing anything. And I would have had a 1k bill each time. 
If anyone else owns these amps and is having issues feel free to contact me for the part numbers and basic instructions.
 As I say I love the amps now and the way they sound but the company is another matter entirely.  And I've had similar experiences with their tubes. Same deal, sound good but zero reliability. 
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