China built tube amps


Well I had an interesting conversation today. I contacted a large dealer and let him know I would like to buy a certain integrated tube amplifier that is made in China. I was told he wouldn't sell me one. He said they are all junk.  Prima Luna, Line Magnetic, Cayin, etc, etc, he said forget it. If you want a tube amplifier buy an American or European built unit that can be serviced.

So, I am new to valve amplifiers and I want to try one to understand what they're all about and sort of get my feet wet with tube rolling etc. I don't want to spend a lot of money at first which is why I was looking at Chinese built integrateds. So my question is, without getting into any particular brand other than what I have already mentioned, what is your experience with Chinese built tube amps? As a whole are they reliable? Am I wasting my money if I buy one according to this dealer? I have to admit I was rather taken aback by how adamant he was. Thoughts anyone?

128x128falconquest

What's worse than those cheapo Amazon Chinese amp? Your dealer!

There are many angles to analyze the situation.

1. You went to a dealer which doesn't stock good Chinese amps and ask about it. Many audio dealer these days aren't any better than used car salemen. To put an analogy, you don't walk into a Ford dealer and ask them how good Honda's are. You won't expect them to tell you go to the Honda dealer nextdoor. They will of course tell you their cars/amps are better, that's their job!

2. Chinese amps comes in a whole spectrum of quality. There are the $400 300B tube amp from Amazon, and there are the good quality, Line Magnetic, Cayin, Willsenton, Prima Luna. I have a couple of LM amps and they sound great if matched with the correct speakers. If you look inside, the build quality is also top notched. Surely there are crap ones, but you just need to weed them out and don't generalize. Generalizing from solely looking at the poorest quality product is very commonplace these days, and it means that you will miss out on the better products.

 

I have a unique perspective since I repair Chinese amps along with the more garden variety vintage and new stuff.  Some of the Chinese amps are pretty horrible and should be avoided at all costs.

Here's a fake NCC capacitor.  The logo text is just gibberish.  

This is not how you'd want to see a wire attached.  This particular amp made about half the power it claimed to.

Here are some blown caps on a Chinese 845 amp that hadn't been used very much according to its owner.

This amp also had some fake caps.  These are also fake NCC caps, but with different text inside the logo.  What you have to understand about these parts is that there's no name and no liability behind what's on there.  If you look for the name brand printed on these caps, it's defunct already!

And some wire nuts for good measure!  

I did one round of repairs on that amp and replaced every single electrolytic cap in the amp.  I also discovered that the balancing resistors they used across each cap in the high voltage supply would overheat and fail, and when they failed they would become a dead short and take out the rest of that power supply node (resistors usually fail to infinite resistance, but I think these were encased in metal).  I also warned the customer that I thought the filament rectifier diodes would overheat if he ran the amp for more than 5-6 hours, and after he left it on overnight I got to do another round of repairs to add beefier rectifier diodes.

(Boards I had made to fix the rectifier issue)  After all this work, this amp has been running reliably for a few years now, but the repair costs were more than he paid for the amp.

I had a pair of Shuguang 845 amps come across my bench and one power transformer had a short from the high voltage winding to the 120V mains winding.  I contacted Shuguang and the domestic distributor at the time about purchasing a replacement power transformer and never even received a response! 

I had to have a new pair of power transformers made for these amps and they had to be bigger to meet the specifications of the amp, so they wouldn't fit under the transformer shrouds.  This was a very costly repair for the customer and his amps were out of commission for three months while I waited for the power transformers to arrive.  

Having brought all this up, I have seen Cayin/Yaqin amps in here that measured pretty well, weren't insanely difficult to work on, and would likely give pretty long service life.  I have no idea what parts availability is like for any of this stuff, and that alone would have me recommending a used Rogue, VAC, or something Dynaco based where there's a wealth of knowledge and reproduction parts available.  

I have also been inside a few Line Magnetics amplifiers and saw absolutely nothing in terms of the parts they were using that looked anything other than 100% genuine and carefully chosen. 

I can only speak for my purchase of a Line Magnetic LM-805ia: I am not a dealer or a shill. I purchased it from Pitch Perfect Audio in Palm Desert, CA. I forgot the owner's name, but he is a super, stand-up guy and carries a lot of their amps and speakers. I've had it for almost 2 1/2 years with zero issues and the sound (to me) is better than the Prima Luna (tested both amps with the same Tannoy Turnberry speakers). If you go with one, I'd suggest swapping in some NOS Melz 6SN7's, a National Union 1940's NOS 6SL7, PSVANCE ACME 805, and PSVANE ACME 300b tubes. I estimate a 20-25% sound improvement over the original tubes. My homemade power cord out of Dueland 600v wires and parts connexion plugs made a nice improvement in sound as did my homemade Dueland RCA cables with the Dueland RCA's. Yes, it's possible: you can buy a China amplifier and still have a place to go back to/contact if you experience any issues. From what I remember the main Line Magnetic service/repair/warranty facility is in Arizona. 

If you find an all-American-made amp that can compete with this one's sound, quality, and price please let me know.

At least you now know which dealer to avoid.

The man’s an opinionated fool.

Lots of wonderful Chinese made high end products.

Not so sure about the ones selling for a hundred bucks on the bay, though.  Although, those may be good, as well.

Good luck and have fun.

 

 

If you do some rudimentary research and familiarize yourself with basic information and develope an understanding of the "Tube Amp", you will find:

The Dealer will offer you something that is Good.

The majority of Chinese products (recognizable names like Prima Luna, Doge, Caiyn etc) are Good.

Japanese and European designs are Good.

It is up to You to decide what is best for "falconquest".

Someone suggested Dynaco... awsome US stuff... Prima Luna, awesome Chinese product, Atmosphere, great... the list is long and well documented.

Please take your time and read, listen and plan... It is not a Race.

After many years of Dynaco, Eico, Quad and similar large(r) scale  production tube amps, I eventually bought Japanese kits and had them assembled with Maximum quality upgraded parts (transformers, tubes, resistors, cases etc...)

It will take you more than a few years to find what suits You and not what suits The Dealer or Your Friends.

Arm yourself with as much knowledge as you can and Enjoy the Journey