Consonance Opera Cyber 211 mods

Thanks for the great response to my post on the 845S monoblocks. As for NED KELLY, where have you been? He is only our most famous bushranger hero downunder in Australia (I am in Melbourne), GOOGLE him. I don't think I will get further into these amps as the sound I am achieving now is outstanding to my ears. Unfortunately I don't know anyone who has what I consider a better system and until I do hear something better I will just call a halt. I did make up some mains leads from 15A semiflexible 3 core wire. I fitted an Australian 15A 3 pin plug to one end and a silverplated IEC 15A to the other. I wasn't expecting much as I was already using some fairly heavy shielded ex. computer cables but the sound did improve a little with slightly better dynamics. Darned if I know why!

Regarding my 845S mono blocks, I have now replaced the original Shuguang 845B tubes with Psvane (Pavane) "Hi Fi Series" 845 tubes. These sound far better (to my ears) than the original 845B tubes ever did. Apparently their "Collection Series" tubes sound even better but at considerably higher cost. I believe Psvane make 211 tubes and it would be interesting to hear how they sound in a 211 amp. Has anyone tried their 845 tubes?

Daviddsailor,

Don't waste your money on the Psvane 845-T. Aside from having reliability issues they are a sonic downgrade to the 845B. I had two who actually owned and liked Psvane 845s until I urged them to try 845Bs at which point they promptly sold off the Psvanes.

For those interested, I finally completed the mods to both Cyber amplifiers. Complete upgrade to the signal path - replaced all caps (2 vcap teflon and 2 blackgates), resistors (20 assorted and recommended by Nick at HiFi Collective), wiring (VHaudio teflon OC copper), Eichman binding posts and RCA), new balanced connector (Furutech), IEC (Furutech), and finally the bridge rectifier (4 diodes also recommended by Nick). I moved the RCA and Balanced inputs to a custom designed side panel to get away from the power at the rear.

I did not touch the power supply (other than the rectifier). As I mentioned before, I did these upgrades in three iterations, the improvements are stunning - with the biggest benefit from the resistors, recognizing that the vcaps are about 2/3 burned in, at about 300 hours or so.

As mentioned above re the psvanes, which I'm running now - I'm ready to find some GEs or RCAs.

I now see from your photos that my 845S amps are only similar to the 211 types internally. My resistors look as if they might be an upgraded type from the previous model 211/845 amp. As for the Psvane 845 'Hi Fi' grade tubes I am using, I read that they are discards from the Collection Series (T) testing which may have found themselves in the trash bin except that if they are good enough they can make the 'Hi Fi' tube spec. Anyway, I like their sound better that my stock 845B tubes. I added 3 in parallel 0.47/1600V film caps across the 1000VDC rail electros plus a 0.47/600V film cap across each of the two B+ rails. I would have bypassed the -ve bias supply rail too but forgot, and I can't be bothered taking things out again to get to that area. The power supply bypass caps seemed to give a little better focus at the high end and I'm very happy with that mod. I've also replaced the speaker terminals with silver plated brass (they were sold to me as copper!). I use Cat 6 speaker wire (bi-wired) and last night I changed the way I had configured the pairs. The hi end has now become more extended. Previously the Cat 6 exhibited quite high capacitance between wires, however the way I have it now the capacitance is much lower. I guess the next move is to replace the filament bridge rectifier block with some fast recovery diodes. Hopefully this will make the amps a little quieter when I stick my ear in the speaker. There is only the slightest buzz in the speakers at present.