Hi Dave. I agree with you 100%. You cannot beat the sound of valve (tube) equipment. The valves (tubes) produce a richer depth of sound than modern transistorized equipment, imo. Please keep up the great videos.
That definitely one of the best Chinese amplifiers made to date. I have one the MC-100b. Well build and sound great, much better then some of the crap seen sold at high end boutique audiophile stores.
Yaqin amplifiers sound good straight out of the box, however just changing the coupling capacitors will make a noticeable improvement, you don't need to buy expensive cap's, the Russian PIO cap's do the job nicely. I run a couple of Yaqin groups on FB, so I can confirm that with any Yaqin amplifier up grading the coupling capacitors is the best improvement you can make. As to power tubes, many of us go for the EH 6CA7 or the JJ EL34.
It's a real nice amp. Thanks for taking us on a tour of it and let us have a listen. One thing that I was hoping that you would do was to give us the designators for the tubes that you have in the power section and the preamp section. I have a collection of tubes that I've collected over the years, I have them all sealed in plastic bags, most are slightly used but still in great condition and I've got a bunch of tubes which are brand new old stock. I have around 20 of The Bugle Boy 12AX7, I would have to go pull my list out of the box to recall everything that's in there. I have some high voltage vacuum tube diodes, I have some miniature tubes and some large power tubes. I really need to do something with them someday, maybe I can find somebody who would just like to purchase the whole set from me for one price. I don't really want to take the time to piece them out one at a time. Anyway like I said I appreciate you showing us your amp, God bless you.
@@12voltvids hey thanks, I appreciate the info. I love Tube Technology I just don't have the funds right now to put into a real nice toy like that. I just love the harmonics that you get from a tube amp. Maybe one of these days I will spring for one of the lower priced models. I'd really like to find a good deal on a small tube guitar amp. I play a little guitar but I'm not great at it, it's just plain old fun.
@@NEW_INSITE yes they are expensive. This one is probably the best deal out there. I followed the development in the early days. Yaquin is the engineers name. He designed and hand built amplifiers in early 2000s. Started the company and they build everything in house. Wind their own iron, craft their own boards, have their own metal shop. Everything in house and as you saw from the build quality it shows that the small team is dedicated to building the best amplifier they can. They would be a bargan at 3x the price.
@@12voltvids yeah it looks like a great amplifier and I'm sure it's a great price compared to a lot of the other options nowadays, vacuum tube technology is expensive nowadays. I'm 66 years old and I actually started experimenting with vacuum tube Heath kits when I was about 11 years old. I once made a simple one tube project that was a proximity detector. I don't remember which vacuum tube it was but it would glow orange when you got your hand near a piece of foil on a copper extension that was hooked to the grid of the tube , those were the days when Heath kit and Radio Shack were still in business I guess. I actually started experimenting with electronics very young in kept out at my whole life. I was in electronics and radio repair in the military and even though I I got into electrician work and heating and air work later in life I've always kept Electronics as a hobby. I can usually fix most problems I encounter with things like my TV and other electronic items. I can repair down to the transistor and IC level. Anyway, I really just love vacuum tube technology, like I said they have a harmonic effect reproducing sound that you don't get in a stereo amplifier. It just brings out another dimension to sound that you don't usually hear in modern electronics. I don't know exactly which speakers you use on your amplifier, but and some studying that I have done and actually investigating some amplifiers in the speakers in them, I found out that for vacuum tube amplifiers they use a different type of speaker than in transistor type of amplifiers. The speaker has a smaller diameter coil but it has more windings of wire which are thinner than the wires used in the coils for transistor technology. And I believe this was because a vacuum tube amp drove the speakers with a voltage differential versus the transistor amplifier driving the speakers with a current differential being applied to the speaker. Anyway if I explained it wrong I'm sorry, I'm just rambling. You have a good day, and God bless you.
well built well designed amps all ways sound good especially when quality components are used . That amp does seem to have a real nice sound though it is only hinted at after all the youtube compression and processing. I have a feeling that the output transformers have a significant contribution to the resulting out put sound. Even in older early solid state amp that used inter-stage audio transformers the sound has a different quality from the amps without the audio transformer in the signal path. I have never done research but I suspect that some of the high frequency noise is attenuated by the transformer. I kind of wanted to see all the inside but that would be a real chore so I don't blame you for not doing that unless you have to I wouldn't do it either.
the Yaqin are nice sounding amps. I remember when the MC10 first came out. Created quite a stir among audiophiles. Great sound for a relatively modest price back then. The Chinese have come a long way in the last few years on build quality and performance.
They did. I was introduced to them by an audiophool that had spent thousands of Macintosh gear. He put the 10L or S or whatever the previous to the 10T was and let me listen. I couldn't pick which was which they were that close. So i went out and bought this one.
That is a nicely built amp, Dave. If you ever decide to replace the EL34's, please, please do a sound comparison with your old tubes! A before and after, if you like. The only problem would be that new tubes need to burn in before they sound their best, so an immediate comparison wouldn't be any good, maybe after 20 hours of use? There is so much bull talked regarding tubes, and hifi in general, a real before and after would be very informative. Thanks.
@12voltvids OK, so would take quite a while before a fair comparison could be done between old and new. Plus different brands of tubes would sound a little different too as well.
@@Markpab to get the most out of a new set of tubes you plug them in warm up set bias and then just let them run for a few days 24/7 no sound through them. After 100 or so hours check the bias and then good to go. Not saying you can't listen but during that first 100 hours there will be subtile changes. Not much, and most people probably won't notice. just like when the old tubes are getting tired and I know for sure that the tubes in my app are certainly getting tired because they're 15 years old.well two of them are maybe 10 years old and the other is 15 but you get the drift they're all getting up there getting kind of long in the tooth as I say and they tend to get a little softer sounding over time resetting the bias will bring back a bit of the sparkle but as they get weak they tend to lose power cathode doesn't admit as many electrons and your power level starts to drop that's what typically happens on tubes. When they renew the sample fire could put out around 50 watts per channel maximum as the tubes age that power level is going to drop a bit if I were to measure it today I bet I wouldn't see much more about 30 watts per channel before the tube started to get saggy and get into the distortion. The cathodes just can't emit as many electrons as they once could. Generally when tubes are brand new they have the highest emission. That drops off during that first few dozen hours and by 100 hours or so they have leveled off and the emission stays pretty flat for the next couple thousand (or more depending on how hard they are driven) preamp tubes can last for decades. Then they start their gradual decline need a little more bias and the output starts to fall because the tube can no longer go into full conduction. Single ended amplifiers eat the tubes faster than push pull because they are always in heavy conduction even when no signal. The single ended however sounds fantastic.
Thank you so much for the great video! I always enjoy watching your channel. I found out about him thanks to Adrian's Digital Basement channel. Since then I have become your subscriber) It's always great to see how you cope with complex technology. And thanks to your videos, I was able to repair my Hitachi VCR myself. There was a problem with the sliding mechanism. It's also great that you like to listen to jazz) I also love jazz. If it's not difficult for you, please tell me what is the name of the track on which you are testing the recording and sound? Thank you very much for the interesting videos and good luck to you)
It's stereo. It's in my music room, which is a dedicated room with all my old and newer stereo equipment. Right now that room is pretty full as have a bunch of crap from wife's mother that went into a seniors home and all their junk ended up in my living room for me to dispose of. So I'm gradually getting rid of it all
I bought replacement el84 tubes from Long and Macquaid Music. Guitar amp tubes are made to run hotter, I think. They are Mesa-Boogie branded tubes. Quite chunky tubes actually.
Each tube design has specific sound characteristics. That's the fun (and expense) of tube rolling. It's interesting to hear the differences. Some slight and others drastic. Different gain, bass or mid response. They all sound good some better than others.
Small world! I had a Yaqin MC10 in 2010. I fitted it with Russian tubes, and it sounded very good, until it red-plated! 💥👎🤣 Agree 100%! The sound is excellent, and it's a terrible dust magnet!
No they don't produce any heat. The main one might get slightly warm to the touch after many hours of operation and that's only due to the current for the heater filaments in the tubes.
had 5 videos Copyrighted content has been detected in your video all of which used copyfree music this week what is happening to youtube you are becoming a right pain. ?
All tube gear has high distortion. It's even order harmonics and that type sounds great. Not uncommon to see 1 or 2% On as gear anything more than .1 is bad.
@@12voltvids Which is most modern amps today... Have you seen these high end amps all meant to be "audiophile" quality. Yet have a 1% THD. This is why I prefer retro HIFI. Anything from thr late 70s to early 90s have THDs much lower than todays offerings.
@@theotherchannel2279 actually they are not. I have a big amp that the thd is rated 1% however that is under full load maximum power just before clipping. At 450 watts per channel both channels driven. At normal musical levels it is 0.02 perhaps not as low as my Technics new class A which is 0.003 but you can't perceive odd order below 0.12 anyway. The problem with all solid state including class a, ab, h, d, s ect us they are very sterile. A tube amp is not. They are alive and add their own personality to the sound in the firm if high even order harmonics. Even order harmonics are all in phase with the fundamental frequency. So an A (440 hz) will have a 2nd harmonic of 880, also A an octive higher. So even though tubes add colour to sound they do it in a way that makes the sound fuller, bolder. Acoustic instruments come alive. The sound stage is fantastic. Put a record on ss system and it just sounds flat. Same record in the tubes and you can place the location of the instruments and stuff hurried in the mix stands out.
rediculous that someone would pay half of my monthly salary for obsolete technology which requires constant maintenace, but who am i to critisise how others use thaire money... i have 2 plastic housing desktop speakers with integrated amplifier and volume/bass/treble controls for my pc, and i listen all my music and youtube trought them, i have No auxiliar amplifier. When i watch tv, the sounds come from inside the tv from stock speakers and sound great to my ear.
If they sound good enough to you that's cool and no need to look for something else. I'm not into real hi Fi stuff and its stupid prices but like good vintage stereos and could consider this "affordable" hifi stuff, the thing is when you listen to these in person and you notice a great improvement it becomes addictive when the music you love sounds better. It's also usually a good investment you can resell later
No shit. That was a disgrace. This is how you build a modern tube amplifier. You can tell the workers take pride in their work. Last time i read about the company they were a small team of 50 and they did everything. Fan the chassis, wind the tranaformers, build them all by hand and every unit is brined in before it leaves the factory. For what they cost they are an absolute bargain. Even the class A kit i built costs about double what this cost and I had to build it myself.
@@12voltvids I was looking at a Chinese made tube amp a few years ago. They had all sorts of options you could add like cages, tube options, etc... You could even choose whether to have the tube socket soldered to a board or have them wired like yours at an extra cost.
@@12voltvids It was three years ago. It suddenly didn't become such a deal for some reason so I took a pass on it. th-cam.com/video/vCk12xzivp8/w-d-xo.htmlsi=SV9isPj2LEEHCN4C
@@richardsmith2721 the fiatest growing group is audiophiles are Chinese. So they have a big market to sell to and the wealthy Chinese demand quality. These yaqin are built by audiophiles for audiophiles. I bought mine on a high recommendation from a fellow i know that had all McIntosh gear and he introduced me to the brand when it first appeared and told me to give one a good listen before sending little Crystal mounts on brands such as rogue, McIntosh ext. He knows I have an old vintage mac1500 and we were talking aboyt me restoring it. He told me to come over he wanted me to listen to this new 550 tube amp he had purchased. It was the yaqin mc10s, the prior model to what I have. Sat me down in his listening room turned on his Mac. Played a few very good jazz, classical and Rock tracks. Then switched to his yaqin and played the same tracks. The next words out of his mouth $20,000 dollars as he points to the mcibtiah and preamp. 1000 when he points to the yaqin. I don't hear $19000 difference in sound do you? Now the reason he said 1000 when the amp at the time was only something like 550 was because he put in some NOS mullard el34 and swapped the stock 12at7 tubes which he said set him back about 400 and recommended that if i buy one to roll the tubes for some NOS as he said it makes all the difference in the world. Well i haven't rolled the tubes yet as i am pretty happy with how it sounds but different tubes will aparantly make it sing even better. I'll change them out someday when these ones wear out and spend some money but till they go I'm enjoying it as it is. I've had many good years of service and after opening it yesterday to see how it was built I understand now why I've had such good service because I had no idea they were that well built. A bargain even at the new 955.00 price. Yes it's too much for many for sure, it's a luxury item but in luxury tube amplifiers it's a real bargain when you compare it to others. Would not hesitate to buy another one.
I am glad you did this video, because "audiophiles" love to make fun of Yaqin being a Chinese brand, not good enough.
Hi Dave. I agree with you 100%. You cannot beat the sound of valve (tube) equipment. The valves (tubes) produce a richer depth of sound than modern transistorized equipment, imo. Please keep up the great videos.
That definitely one of the best Chinese amplifiers made to date. I have one the MC-100b. Well build and sound great, much better then some of the crap seen sold at high end boutique audiophile stores.
Couldn't agree more!
Yaqin amplifiers sound good straight out of the box, however just changing the coupling capacitors will make a noticeable improvement, you don't need to buy expensive cap's, the Russian PIO cap's do the job nicely. I run a couple of Yaqin groups on FB, so I can confirm that with any Yaqin amplifier up grading the coupling capacitors is the best improvement you can make. As to power tubes, many of us go for the EH 6CA7 or the JJ EL34.
It's a real nice amp. Thanks for taking us on a tour of it and let us have a listen. One thing that I was hoping that you would do was to give us the designators for the tubes that you have in the power section and the preamp section. I have a collection of tubes that I've collected over the years, I have them all sealed in plastic bags, most are slightly used but still in great condition and I've got a bunch of tubes which are brand new old stock. I have around 20 of The Bugle Boy 12AX7, I would have to go pull my list out of the box to recall everything that's in there. I have some high voltage vacuum tube diodes, I have some miniature tubes and some large power tubes. I really need to do something with them someday, maybe I can find somebody who would just like to purchase the whole set from me for one price. I don't really want to take the time to piece them out one at a time. Anyway like I said I appreciate you showing us your amp, God bless you.
It has 4 12au7 and 4 el34 but it will take 6ca6 as well.
@@12voltvids hey thanks, I appreciate the info. I love Tube Technology I just don't have the funds right now to put into a real nice toy like that. I just love the harmonics that you get from a tube amp. Maybe one of these days I will spring for one of the lower priced models. I'd really like to find a good deal on a small tube guitar amp. I play a little guitar but I'm not great at it, it's just plain old fun.
@@NEW_INSITE yes they are expensive. This one is probably the best deal out there.
I followed the development in the early days. Yaquin is the engineers name. He designed and hand built amplifiers in early 2000s. Started the company and they build everything in house. Wind their own iron, craft their own boards, have their own metal shop. Everything in house and as you saw from the build quality it shows that the small team is dedicated to building the best amplifier they can. They would be a bargan at 3x the price.
@@12voltvids yeah it looks like a great amplifier and I'm sure it's a great price compared to a lot of the other options nowadays, vacuum tube technology is expensive nowadays. I'm 66 years old and I actually started experimenting with vacuum tube Heath kits when I was about 11 years old. I once made a simple one tube project that was a proximity detector. I don't remember which vacuum tube it was but it would glow orange when you got your hand near a piece of foil on a copper extension that was hooked to the grid of the tube , those were the days when Heath kit and Radio Shack were still in business I guess. I actually started experimenting with electronics very young in kept out at my whole life. I was in electronics and radio repair in the military and even though I I got into electrician work and heating and air work later in life I've always kept Electronics as a hobby. I can usually fix most problems I encounter with things like my TV and other electronic items. I can repair down to the transistor and IC level. Anyway, I really just love vacuum tube technology, like I said they have a harmonic effect reproducing sound that you don't get in a stereo amplifier. It just brings out another dimension to sound that you don't usually hear in modern electronics. I don't know exactly which speakers you use on your amplifier, but and some studying that I have done and actually investigating some amplifiers in the speakers in them, I found out that for vacuum tube amplifiers they use a different type of speaker than in transistor type of amplifiers. The speaker has a smaller diameter coil but it has more windings of wire which are thinner than the wires used in the coils for transistor technology. And I believe this was because a vacuum tube amp drove the speakers with a voltage differential versus the transistor amplifier driving the speakers with a current differential being applied to the speaker. Anyway if I explained it wrong I'm sorry, I'm just rambling. You have a good day, and God bless you.
I remember seeing this Amp in your video demonstrating AM Stereo
I had only owned it for 4 or 5 years when this was shot.
well built well designed amps all ways sound good especially when quality components are used . That amp does seem to have a real nice sound though it is only hinted at after all the youtube compression and processing. I have a feeling that the output transformers have a significant contribution to the resulting out put sound. Even in older early solid state amp that used inter-stage audio transformers the sound has a different quality from the amps without the audio transformer in the signal path. I have never done research but I suspect that some of the high frequency noise is attenuated by the transformer. I kind of wanted to see all the inside but that would be a real chore so I don't blame you for not doing that unless you have to I wouldn't do it either.
the Yaqin are nice sounding amps. I remember when the MC10 first came out. Created quite a stir among audiophiles. Great sound for a relatively modest price back then. The Chinese have come a long way in the last few years on build quality and performance.
They did. I was introduced to them by an audiophool that had spent thousands of Macintosh gear. He put the 10L or S or whatever the previous to the 10T was and let me listen. I couldn't pick which was which they were that close. So i went out and bought this one.
Wow! nice unit, I have been partial to the warm sound these device's deliver.
That is a nicely built amp, Dave. If you ever decide to replace the EL34's, please, please do a sound comparison with your old tubes! A before and after, if you like. The only problem would be that new tubes need to burn in before they sound their best, so an immediate comparison wouldn't be any good, maybe after 20 hours of use? There is so much bull talked regarding tubes, and hifi in general, a real before and after would be very informative. Thanks.
Run in of new tubes takes more like 100 hours.
@12voltvids OK, so would take quite a while before a fair comparison could be done between old and new. Plus different brands of tubes would sound a little different too as well.
@@Markpab to get the most out of a new set of tubes you plug them in warm up set bias and then just let them run for a few days 24/7 no sound through them. After 100 or so hours check the bias and then good to go. Not saying you can't listen but during that first 100 hours there will be subtile changes. Not much, and most people probably won't notice. just like when the old tubes are getting tired and I know for sure that the tubes in my app are certainly getting tired because they're 15 years old.well two of them are maybe 10 years old and the other is 15 but you get the drift they're all getting up there getting kind of long in the tooth as I say and they tend to get a little softer sounding over time resetting the bias will bring back a bit of the sparkle but as they get weak they tend to lose power cathode doesn't admit as many electrons and your power level starts to drop that's what typically happens on tubes. When they renew the sample fire could put out around 50 watts per channel maximum as the tubes age that power level is going to drop a bit if I were to measure it today I bet I wouldn't see much more about 30 watts per channel before the tube started to get saggy and get into the distortion. The cathodes just can't emit as many electrons as they once could. Generally when tubes are brand new they have the highest emission. That drops off during that first few dozen hours and by 100 hours or so they have leveled off and the emission stays pretty flat for the next couple thousand (or more depending on how hard they are driven) preamp tubes can last for decades. Then they start their gradual decline need a little more bias and the output starts to fall because the tube can no longer go into full conduction. Single ended amplifiers eat the tubes faster than push pull because they are always in heavy conduction even when no signal. The single ended however sounds fantastic.
Tube amps and Class A solid state amps make wonderful space heaters.
So do plasma TV's. Ask me how I know.
Thank you so much for the great video! I always enjoy watching your channel. I found out about him thanks to Adrian's Digital Basement channel. Since then I have become your subscriber) It's always great to see how you cope with complex technology. And thanks to your videos, I was able to repair my Hitachi VCR myself. There was a problem with the sliding mechanism. It's also great that you like to listen to jazz) I also love jazz. If it's not difficult for you, please tell me what is the name of the track on which you are testing the recording and sound? Thank you very much for the interesting videos and good luck to you)
Nice!
So that is a mono or stereo? What do you use it for? Is it for your music or theater!
It's stereo. It's in my music room, which is a dedicated room with all my old and newer stereo equipment. Right now that room is pretty full as have a bunch of crap from wife's mother that went into a seniors home and all their junk ended up in my living room for me to dispose of. So I'm gradually getting rid of it all
Nice looking amp!
Yes it is.
What speakers are you running with this?
In tbe house i run B&W dm550. In tbe shop just cheap speakers from a JVC mini system.
What a gorgious unit.
I bought replacement el84 tubes from Long and Macquaid Music. Guitar amp tubes are made to run hotter, I think. They are Mesa-Boogie branded tubes. Quite chunky tubes actually.
Each tube design has specific sound characteristics. That's the fun (and expense) of tube rolling. It's interesting to hear the differences. Some slight and others drastic. Different gain, bass or mid response. They all sound good some better than others.
It's much cheaper to just roll the preamp tubes.
Great but what about Audio Research tube amps ?
What about them.
That thing sounds like velvet, if velvet made sounds, LOL! I see examples online going for $655 to $800. Thanks for taking us along!!
It's hard to tell over the microphone on the camera just how great it sound even on these little speakers.
@12voltvids That was definitely accounted for in my thoughts. "If it sounds this good using a camera mic..." Amazing.
@@waltschannel7465 yea it's pretty smooth. Puts a smile on my face every time i turn it on.
Small world! I had a Yaqin MC10 in 2010. I fitted it with Russian tubes, and it sounded very good, until it red-plated! 💥👎🤣
Agree 100%! The sound is excellent, and it's a terrible dust magnet!
So your bias was off the charts is what you are saying. Loss of negative screen will do that.
Heard distortion when you fired it up.
Tubes were not warmed up. Once everything warms up they sound great
Those transformers must get very warm🤔
No they don't produce any heat. The main one might get slightly warm to the touch after many hours of operation and that's only due to the current for the heater filaments in the tubes.
I love tube amps, just afraid my cats will mess it up
seems The Orchard Music is the problem
Them and other scammers.
had 5 videos
Copyrighted content has been detected in your video
all of which used copyfree music this week what is happening to youtube you are becoming a right pain. ?
No claims on any of my videos.
THD seems quite high on this unit.
All tube gear has high distortion. It's even order harmonics and that type sounds great. Not uncommon to see 1 or 2%
On as gear anything more than .1 is bad.
@@12voltvids Which is most modern amps today... Have you seen these high end amps all meant to be "audiophile" quality. Yet have a 1% THD. This is why I prefer retro HIFI. Anything from thr late 70s to early 90s have THDs much lower than todays offerings.
@@theotherchannel2279 actually they are not. I have a big amp that the thd is rated 1% however that is under full load maximum power just before clipping. At 450 watts per channel both channels driven. At normal musical levels it is 0.02 perhaps not as low as my Technics new class A which is 0.003 but you can't perceive odd order below 0.12 anyway.
The problem with all solid state including class a, ab, h, d, s ect us they are very sterile. A tube amp is not. They are alive and add their own personality to the sound in the firm if high even order harmonics. Even order harmonics are all in phase with the fundamental frequency. So an A (440 hz) will have a 2nd harmonic of 880, also A an octive higher. So even though tubes add colour to sound they do it in a way that makes the sound fuller, bolder. Acoustic instruments come alive. The sound stage is fantastic. Put a record on ss system and it just sounds flat. Same record in the tubes and you can place the location of the instruments and stuff hurried in the mix stands out.
rediculous that someone would pay half of my monthly salary for obsolete technology which requires constant maintenace, but who am i to critisise how others use thaire money... i have 2 plastic housing desktop speakers with integrated amplifier and volume/bass/treble controls for my pc, and i listen all my music and youtube trought them, i have No auxiliar amplifier. When i watch tv, the sounds come from inside the tv from stock speakers and sound great to my ear.
When you have money might as well send it. Can't take ur with you.
If they sound good enough to you that's cool and no need to look for something else. I'm not into real hi Fi stuff and its stupid prices but like good vintage stereos and could consider this "affordable" hifi stuff, the thing is when you listen to these in person and you notice a great improvement it becomes addictive when the music you love sounds better. It's also usually a good investment you can resell later
It ain't no Jolida.
No shit. That was a disgrace. This is how you build a modern tube amplifier. You can tell the workers take pride in their work. Last time i read about the company they were a small team of 50 and they did everything. Fan the chassis, wind the tranaformers, build them all by hand and every unit is brined in before it leaves the factory. For what they cost they are an absolute bargain. Even the class A kit i built costs about double what this cost and I had to build it myself.
@@12voltvids I was looking at a Chinese made tube amp a few years ago. They had all sorts of options you could add like cages, tube options, etc... You could even choose whether to have the tube socket soldered to a board or have them wired like yours at an extra cost.
@@12voltvids It was three years ago. It suddenly didn't become such a deal for some reason so I took a pass on it.
th-cam.com/video/vCk12xzivp8/w-d-xo.htmlsi=SV9isPj2LEEHCN4C
@@richardsmith2721 the fiatest growing group is audiophiles are Chinese. So they have a big market to sell to and the wealthy Chinese demand quality. These yaqin are built by audiophiles for audiophiles. I bought mine on a high recommendation from a fellow i know that had all McIntosh gear and he introduced me to the brand when it first appeared and told me to give one a good listen before sending little Crystal mounts on brands such as rogue, McIntosh ext. He knows I have an old vintage mac1500 and we were talking aboyt me restoring it. He told me to come over he wanted me to listen to this new 550 tube amp he had purchased. It was the yaqin mc10s, the prior model to what I have. Sat me down in his listening room turned on his Mac. Played a few very good jazz, classical and Rock tracks. Then switched to his yaqin and played the same tracks. The next words out of his mouth $20,000 dollars as he points to the mcibtiah and preamp. 1000 when he points to the yaqin. I don't hear $19000 difference in sound do you?
Now the reason he said 1000 when the amp at the time was only something like 550 was because he put in some NOS mullard el34 and swapped the stock 12at7 tubes which he said set him back about 400 and recommended that if i buy one to roll the tubes for some NOS as he said it makes all the difference in the world. Well i haven't rolled the tubes yet as i am pretty happy with how it sounds but different tubes will aparantly make it sing even better. I'll change them out someday when these ones wear out and spend some money but till they go I'm enjoying it as it is. I've had many good years of service and after opening it yesterday to see how it was built I understand now why I've had such good service because I had no idea they were that well built. A bargain even at the new 955.00 price. Yes it's too much for many for sure, it's a luxury item but in luxury tube amplifiers it's a real bargain when you compare it to others. Would not hesitate to buy another one.
Totally a Chinese thing to do by putting a round can on top of the transformers to give the illusion that they are torroidal.
They never claimed torroidal inside. Around covers look nicer then a big square box.