Hi Fi kaki gathering session a.k.a Friday Nite Party (Part 2)

The whole lot of us commented in the previous session that Triangle should be tried with tube amps. It was repeated many times and everyone actually wanted to prove a point. Okay. The very next day, I was at my friend's shop chit chatting with the old timers and suddenly my eyes caught a cute little tube amp sitting on top of a hifi rack. Ah.. It's a Single-Ended power amplifier. Without wasting much time, I asked my friend if I can give it a go with Triangles. "Yes. Of course." was the straight answer. There we go, stuffing the little amp into the packing box. Gosh!! This thing weighs a ton. Off we go and headed straight back to Seremban.   

I wasted no time and sent out messages to inform the rest about the latest amp in town. They were all shocked about the seriousness of having a tube amp with Triangle as they just commented about it the night before. Oh yeah!! Here we go. Another round of Friday Nite Party was set and this time we have a Japanese tube amp by the name of Acoustic Masterpiece M-101 in our menu. Well, I think not many of us here actually came across this brand. So, I will touch a bit on the brand first.

Acoustic Masterpiece is actually a sister company of the famous Japanese hi-end tube amp manufacturer, Air Tight. The M-101 uses 2x KT-88 and 2x 12AX7 together with 2 very expensive Tamara transformers. Checking on the specs, one will get to know that the output is only 8 watt. At the front faceplate are two tiny knobs which function as the attenuators. It is very solidly and well built.

Air Tight's Acoustic Masterpiece M-101

Friday night is here and guess what? The rest of the gang brought along their prized pre-amps this time. One of them said "the more, the merrier!!" That night looked as though it was forever young as we had an extended menu. We had the following:

Graaf WFB TWO pre-amp

The Fisher

DIY Matisse

All the trio, one Italian, one American and one Malaysian, sounded different with distinguishable characteristics straight away. There is one with smooth sounding, more balance between music and vocal, one with music tonality but with less focus, less details and one with very fine details but less tonality. So, I guess some of you might have known which is which as it was also a subject in one of the local hi-fi forums. It's great to have sessions like this where we can get to compare each pre-amps side-by-side. There's no right or wrong, no winners, no losers but everyone who was there that night was happy to have their listening experiences enriched further.  

Without much notice, it was already close to 12.30am and it was time to bring the curtains down on the pre-amp shootout night. Thanks everyone in making this happen. Hope you guys are reading this!! Cheers..