Incredible value for the cost. Quality workmanship and the sound is truly fantastic. Low noise floor and excellent clarity, warmth and bass. For a 35 unit, you'd be amazed at the soundstage and bass output it can generate. The transformers alone weigh almost 40 lbs. Ability to tweak the unit via Paul @ Bizzy Bee Audio. I had the Auricap upgrades, external biasing option, upgraded tubes, subwoofer out and focus control).

It'd always be nice to have an extra 100 watts of tube power, but that ain't gonna happen at this price point. That said, I do sometimes wish it could drive just a bit more, but most 95% of the time, I'm very satisfied.

This integrated tube amp is an absolute giant killer for the price. It has an extremely low noise floor, warm mid-range and clear highs with impressive soundstage and bass. I was very impressed with the construction of the unit and the modifications that Paul @ Bizzy Bee Audio made. I think for the price, it beats all others in its class. I dare say that it'd be tough to justify almost an additional $2,000 to get something that I believe compares with it (CJ CAV50, Cary SLI-80, VAC etc.). I do know that when compared to by Bryston B60 which I've had for over 5 years now, it's highs and mids are as clear as the B60 and yet it has the wonderful warmth of tubes (which the B60 is known for its nice warmth). I still like to listen to the Bryston and will keep it as a second unit to enjoy. However, quite honestly I'm not sure that I'd purchase the Bryston again if I had first demo'ed the Cayin TA-30 first. It's over 2x expensive and I find myself listening through tubes more, particularly with the type of loudspeakers I have (Meadowlark Audio Shearwater Hot Rods).

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Bryston B60 Creek 4330 Denon AVR1000 Arcam Alpha 10

Built like a tank, sounds great out of the box, and a different and often better sound is only a $50-$90 set of tubes away.

Not able to handle some big explosions in movies which could be due to lack of wattage, but is more likely the lack of a good DVD player and or the fact that this amp was not designed for home theatre applications.

BACKROUND I had been interested in the tube sound for about 3 years before I purchased this amp, but after having a bad experience with a classic tube amp with issues and seeing that most of the new tube amps were out of my price range, I almost gave up. I saw something on Paul Grzybek's web site (where most of these amps are coming from) that said that he could help find a decent tube amp on EBay, so I emailed him. He sent me back an ad for this amp and I could not believe that one could be had for as little as $499. I was fully planning to buy one of these from him, but then one came up for auction on EBay which I won for $460 including shipping. FIRST IMPRESSIONS I was a little anxious after my experience with the half dead classic tube amp, but my fears were quickly put to rest the first time I played Sublime- Garden grove. I had played that CD through many systems, but I felt like I was really hearing it for the first time. It sounded really good, but seemed to lack punch on movies. I send an e-mail to the previous owner and asked him how many hours the tubes had on them. It turned out that there were close to 0 and that made me wonder if the amp needed to be biased. BIASING I though the idea of taking this amp to a technician to be biased seemed silly since I had read so much about the process on the internet. With just a cheap multimeter, I was able to set the bias in about 5 minutes after about a 20 minute warm up period. I was really glad that I checked because the tubes were 165,215,346,488. After all being set to 350mv I of coarse noticed a huge jump in sound quality, movies sounded sufficiently loud, and everything sounded much more in focus. BURN IN AND TUBE ROLLING I noticed that after the stock tubes got a couple hundred hours on them that they started to sound smoother and cleaner. I decided to swap the stock tubes for a set of Electro Harmonix 6CA7's. After break in, before which was another story, I noticed an overall improvement in bass response and detail. I did notice a slight loss of midrange, which I have read is a common complaint for this brand of tubes. I will probably try Svetlana KT-88s next. CONCLUSION: This amp cannot be beat in sound quality by any solid state amp under $3000. It has made a believer out of me and I can honestly say that I will never listen to a sand (silicon) based amplifier again!

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Sansui 1000A-Probably worth $500 if you invest $500 in it

Stunning looks and build quality. Superb sound detail, midrange warmth, soundstage, imaging and bass definition.

Does not come with phono connector.

BACKGROUND: Up until a year ago I thought Dolby Digital/DTS was the ultimate in sound reproduction and that (don't laugh) Bose was the ultimate in speaker gear. Words like "soundstage", "imaging" and "timbre" were absent from my vocabulary. I used to believe Consumer Reports' ratings like religion and thought an "audiophile" was a snooty person who owned Bang and Olufson gear. My introduction to tubes came about a year ago when I visited a friend who had the Antique Sound Lab Wave-8 monoblocks and preamp set. It was a revelation to me. I was astounded by the natural sound, musicality and warmth of the midrange produced by the little critters. I then made a decision to separate my home theater movie system from my music system. Budget was a major consideration for me, with $2,000 being the absolute maximum for a new music systen. A search for a speaker system with good all round characteristics resulted in the purchase of pair of JMLab Chorus 716S speakers. A search for a good budget tube amplifier yeilded a number of models including Jolida 102B and 202A, nOrh SE9, ASL MGSi15, Meixing (Ming Da) MC34-B, and the Cayin TA-30. Realizing that it would be difficult and costly to audition all these systems, I went for the Cayin TA-30 - mainly due to the excellent review it got from GoodSound.com. Build quality, durability and finish were also important factors that contributed to my decision. PURCHASE: I bought my TA-30 from a Canadian dealership, Allied TV and Sound, who were most pleasant to deal with. It is also available in the US from CayinUsa.com, who also provide a number of modifications. FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Almost everyone who has reviewed the Cayin TA-30 has praised its extremely good build quality and finish, and I completely agree with them. The amplifier is quite stunning to look at. Mine did not come with rear metal cover for the transformers as seen in the picture above. Instead, mine came with a small individual cover (with the same excellent finish) for each of the three transformers. SOUND: The amplifier sounded extremely good right out of the box. But after a couple of weeks of listening it began to sound even better. The Cayin TA-30 is easily far superior in music playback than any solid state amplifier I lhave istened to in its price range. Its detail, soundstage, imaging, midrange warmth, bass response (tight and fast) and timbre (truer) are just excellent. Its dynamic range is quite impressive and it sounds more "alive" than any solid state amplifier I have previoulsly listened to. The listening experience has been so good that I have gone through all my favorite CDs again and then bought some more. BIASING: The manual recommends sending the amplifier to your dealer once a year for biasing. But I found the biasing to be a very easy task. I use a cheap RadioShack digital multi-meter and was able to bias the tubes myself. You can find the instructions for internal biasing by following the links in CayinUsa. If you are not comfortable opening up the amplifier, then I recommend getting the amp with the external biasing modification (available from CayinUsa). PUSH PULL VERSUS SINGLE ENDED CLASS A: The TA-30 can be played in its default, or "Push Pull", mode or as a "Single Ended Class A" amplifier, by pulling out two of large tubes and rebiasing the remaining large tubes to 0.7 volts. The instructions are available in CayinUsa website. I compared the two modes. The single ended class A sounded a little warmer, but some of the bass definition was lost. Since the Cayin TA-30 is already warmer sounding than solid state, I preferred the default Push Pull mode. MODIFICATIONS AND TWEAKS: The stock Cayin sounded so impressive that I wondered whether I could really improve the sound further. But I continued experimenting with different things and found a couple of things that made a major and noticeable improvement to the already impressive sound. I replaced the stock RealCap signal coupling capacitors with Auricaps from Audience-av.com. This resulted in more detail, cleaner highs, slightly better imaging and more defined bass. There was less coloration and timbre was also truer. As a finishing touch, and since I cannot afford a high-end CD player right now, I added an external digital-to-analog converter (the $240 Piccolo DAC from AOS Electronics ) to my JVC XV-S60 DVD player and this resulted in even better soundstage, and smoother, cleaner and extended highs. CONCLUSION: Listening to music from this amplifier is an extremely enjoyable experience. Music is now involving and alive. It is a kind of experience which I could not have previously imagined possible.

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Antique Soundlabs AV-8 monoblocks/preamp set belonging to friend.