sounds beautiful after it's "burned in"

took at least 72 hrs to burn in

Received the Ah! Tjoeb 4000 a couple of days after ordering it, installed the accompanying part of the transport latch, and installed the Siemens 7308 tubes (German Siemens tubes, not Philips). All fairly easy. Closed the case and connected it to my receiver's analog inputs using DH Labs BL-1 cables.

I have to say that initially I was VERY disappointed. Based on the reviews in Audioreview and Audioasylum, I had high expectations. I almost returned it because after 25 and 50 hours of burn-in, I couldn't tell that there was ANY difference between the Ah! Tjoeb (via analog connection) and my Toshiba SD-3109 dvd player (via digital coax connection). I even conducted a single-blind experiment (after 50 hours) and was only 70% correct in choosing between the Ah! Tjoeb and Toshiba (14 correct out of 20 trials).

However, after 75 hours burn-in, there was a very noticeable difference in the sound of the two players. Now, it wasn't a night-and-day, mud vs crystal clear difference. For well-recorded cds, I've always liked my Toshiba. Sade, Diana Krall, and Sara McLachlan always seemed like they were in the room with you. Although I expected the Ah! Tjoeb to help with poorer recordings, I was surprised by how much it improved the sound of even the better recordings. At that point (>72hrs burn in), I could easily pick out the Ah! Tjoeb when the source was randomized.

The sound of the Ah! Tjoeb is every bit as detailed as the Toshiba. However, it's smoother --- not as grating in some high-frequency passages --- and with a deeper soundstage. For lack of better words, the overall impression given by the Ah! Tjoeb is that the sound emerges against a deeper and blacker backdrop. That combination actually makes the Ah! Tjoeb seem more detailed than the Toshiba, since the sounds are more easily identified in a 3D soundstage. When A/Bing the Ah! Tjoeb and Toshiba with duplicate CDs, there's a noticeable collapsing of the soundstage depth when switching from the Ah! Tjoeb to the Toshiba. At the same time, it's as if the background becomes brighter or more noisy with the Toshiba. Switch back to the Ah! Tjoeb and the soundstage expands backwards, the background becomes more silent (darker), and the higher frequencies become smoother and easier to listen to.

All in all, I am very pleased with the Ah! Tjoeb 4000 and the Siemens 7308 gold-pin tubes (made in Germany by Siemens). Moreover, the cd player arrived sooner than expected. Just remember, you really need to give it time to burn in before doing any critical testing.

BTW, My wife, who is by no means an audio enthusiast and was not thrilled to see the Ah! Tjoeb arrive on our door step, thinks it sounds much better than our Toshiba.

Receiver: Yamaha RX-V800
CD: Ah! Tjoeb 4000 with Siemens 7308 gold-pin tubes
DVD: Toshiba SD-3109
Speakers: Paradigm Studio 80s
Sp Cable: DH Labs Q-10 speaker cable
IC Cable: DH Labs BL-1 II

Similar Products Used:

Toshiba SD-3109 DVD player

Balance, clarity and natural

Not at this price range

This is a really a unique CD player. I recommend doing research on the work and philosophy behind developing it.

After about 100 hours of break-in time, it sounded awesome. The presentation is natural and open, the mids clear and sweet and the bass, well... warm and extended. It's very quick. This player plays well no matter what type of music you put in it. It is definitely one of those components that simply disappears and puts your other components, dare I say it, in question.

I listen to Chinese contempory female vocalists, Jazz and House music. The Njoe Tjoeb makes each one equally involving, enjoyable and most importantly, musical. I'm glad I purchased this player and it'll stay with me for a long time.

Cheers to the people at AH! and Upscale Audio for bringing such a quality piece over to North America. Good luck trying to get one right away because of the low production volume and high demand. Your best bet is to get on the buyer list and wait for Herman at AH! to deliver.

My associated equipment:

-Bryston B60
-B&W DM603 S2
-DH Labs BL-1 and T-14 bi-wired

Similar Products Used:

NAD 522

For the price, you can't beat this player. Remote w/ volume control, headphone, sweet tube output stage.

Didn't work right out of the box, but Upscale Audio was all over the problem and got the unit up and running in short order.

If you've got $550 or so for a CD player, stop looking, you've found your player. I play it through a Mac C-22, and bi-amp a pair of Bozak Symphonys with a Mac MC-225 (high/mid) and a pair of Mac MC-30s (low end) with the Bozak active crossover. I'm now listening to CDs again after listening only to vinyl for the last four years. Don't get me wrong, I still prefer vinyl, but this CD player is very, very pleasant. I tend to get listener fatigue only after four or five hours of continuous listening. This unit does need 100-200 hours of break-in before it achieves its potential. I have A/B compared this to an older Jolida very briefly; the Jolida is nice, this one is significantly better.

Similar Products Used:

Marantz 67, Rega Planet, Pioneer video DVD player

Just a great sounding CD player.

At this price point? Are you kidding?

This is one heck of a CD player regardless of price. An absolute steal at it's price point.

I have tried much more expensive players in my system including the Linn Ikemi and Arcam Alpha 9. I prefer the Njoe Tjoeb. The sound stage is open, detailed and deep. Contrary to the previous review, in my system the image is rock solid. This player also projects life-size presentation. I am talking about the size of the performers within the soundstage. Acoustic guitar and piano sound as real as I have ever heard them in a home system. Pick up Rosanne Cash's 10 song demo CD and listen to the separation between the acoustical guitars and Rosanne's vocals. Good Stuff.

Some reviewers list the build quality as a weakness. Not so in my system because I use all lightweight components and clamp them in a Michael Green Clamp rack. If there are any fellow "tuners" out there, I highly recommend this player in a tunable system.

I bought my player from Kevin Deal at upscale audio. The whole transaction was very pleasent and professional. Kevin was very helpful answering my questions about the player and tubes.

One more point. The player needs about 100 hours to break in.

Similar Products Used:

Marantz CD-67, Linn Ikemi, Arcam Alpha 9, EAD Ultradisc.

great natural sound, best suited to tube amps

display too dark

I have owned the Ah Tjoeb 4000 for three months.
My system includes a (Chinese)Antique Sound Lab MGPIQ 5 14 WPC tube amplifier with (Slovak) Tesla EL 84 tubes, Ah Tjoeb 4000 "tubed" CD player, French JM LAB OPAL 609 3 way speakers with 95 db sensitivity, (British) Chord chorus interconnect cables, and (French) BC acoustic cables for the speakers. My (French) speakers are very good and efficient, and being 15 years old, they have had a lot of burn-in time...
This Chinese/French/Dutch/British/Russian/Slovak system sounds fantastic, compared to much more expensive systems I have heard at some dealers (Martin Logan speakers, Krell amplifiers).
The ASL amplifier costs 500 $ in the US, add 100 -150 $ to replace the stock tubes with EI or Tesla JJ EL 84s and RAM labs input triodes, and it sounds great with the Ah Tjoeb and good efficiency speakers like the JM Labs. I paid more for the cables (power cable, speaker cables, interconnect cables) than for the amplifier !
The Ah Tjoeb really made the biggest difference in sound, compared to the Phillips DVD player I used before. It grows better and better with time. I suspect it need of lot of burn in time.
The biggest difference is in the bass : they are full and rich, and also the presence of the medium: the voices sound natural and very present. The highs sound precise but not agressive at all. The voices sound natural and really there.
You can hear the biggest difference on drum solos, bass solos, piano solos, jazz trios with piano or guitars, and live "unplugged" recordings such as Clapton's "unplugged" CD (much better sound than his identical DVD "unplugged" concert).
The music sounds lively and much more dynamic than it used to: on good live or studio recordings, you can feel the players really present in front of you. The microdynamics of sound are really there: I mean a cymbal crash, a guitar attack, a bass drum pedal, a jazz bass picking are more "present" because there is more difference between the silence before and the loud sound just after the "attack". What used to sound "dull" now sounds "alive".
But now for the real test:

I compared the$ 579 Ah Tjoeb 4000 "tubed" CD player by itself and hooked up with the $ 799 Perpetual Technology P3-A DAC, which has been praised by many rewievers in magazines and web cites around the web (see their site http://www.perpetualtechnologies.com/ for the many rave reviews). To my surprise, I instantly prefered the sound of the Ah Tjoeb without the P3 -A DAC, which means that the Ah Tjoeb's internal tube DAC does better than the highly acclaimed P3-A analog-digital converter (to be fair, I must say that the P3-A probably needs a lot of burn in time also, but I did not think it was worth waiting for it to grow any better...).
For instance, listening to a drum solo like Ron Tutt's on Sheffield labs' drum experience CD-14/20, listen closely for cymbal crashes: on the Ah Tjoeb, you hear the "ting" when the stick hits the cymbal, and then you hear the "crash" or "tsssing" when the cymbal resonates.
With the P3-A DAC hooked on the digital output of the Ah Tjoeb, all you hear is the "tssing", but you miss that initial "ting": it sounds like all the signals do not get to your speaker on time: the initial contact between the stick and the cymbal is masked by the "crash" sound it makes a very short moment later. That is why I think the Ah Tjoeb sounds more "immediately present" than solid states DACs like Perpetual Technology's. In the long run it also sounds less "fatiguing", because fatigue comes from hearing repeatedly those "tssings" instead of the real "tings".
There is probably less in the signal pass to cause delays using the simple tube output than using solid states converters.
The result of this is that I resold immediatly my PA 3 DAC to a friend who owned a Rotel CD player: he found an improvement on his player using this DAC, and therefore everybody is happy...
Now I am considering buying a $800 British Audio Note DAC 1.1x tube DAC, which received a rave review on "enjoythemusic.com" and also in the french "Haute fidélité" magazine. "enjoythemusic.com" highly recommends both the Audio Note DAC 1.1 and the Ah Tjoeb player, but Dick Olsher, who reviewed the later, is not the same person who reviewed the AN DAC on the same site, and nobody there has tried the AN DAC with the Ah Tjoeb. Has anybody here tried it ?

Similar Products Used:

philips DVD player, perpetual technology P3-A

see my other review below

see my other review below

I missed out something in my other review below.

I found out that if the volume level on the Tjoeb 4000 CDP

is lowered to (15) , the volume of the slightest background

seems to increase, while vocal or other front-loud noise

seems to decrease, better fitting to the background.

It´s kind of more balanced. That´s what I experienced.

------

Also 5 Stars for the incredible user support from the

whole AH!-Team , especially to Herman van den dungen !

Similar Products Used:

see my other review below

Bang for the buck. Ease of installation. Ease of purchase with the thoughtful staff at Upscale Audio (thanks). Soundstage is wonderful, sound is full with minimal digital artifacts. Has that elusive analogue quality. Has digital out, headphone jack, and remote control including volume.

Display is dim and vague at a distance (sitting position). Comes only in black...other choices would be better to integrate with existing components.

I was desperate to replace my aging Yamaha CD 1 player, which had finally starting mistracking and sounding awfully bad and two dimensional. I was not even going to purchase another digital product, reverting to analogue with my Oracle/Grado front end, which is fantastic to say the least. I expected to get a smidgeon of that quality out of the Ah! 4000. After all, I could not let my cd investment just sit on the shelf forever. I think we've all been there. So I set up my new player and was told by Kevin at Upscale to let it cook for a week to break in. He said I could listen immediately if I chose, so I did.....wow!!...I was utterly moved by what I heard...Yes...Santana...Floyd...Thelonius....Krall....Dire Straits...jazz...classical....all came to life, no longer plastered to the wall and squeezed in between my tweeters. The sound immediately opened up as if painted with new colors in a most fidelity type of way. The thin but present veil between me and music was lifted gently but reassuringly by the Ah!
I can hardly wait to hear what a burned in player will sound like...in the meantime, thanks Kevin et all at Upscale...and like a previous reviewer, I was not paid for this brief and non-professional testimonial. I do appreciate good service and value for dollar, and that's what I got. Highly recommended.

Similar Products Used:

Yamaha CD 1

When adjusted properly the unit is pure magic for the price.

Left to right imaging is slightly out of focus. Variable volume control has big effect on sound.

OK this is review #2 for me. I have had the 4000 for 9 days and have about 60 hours of burn in on it. It took a while to settle down but never did it give a poor performance. The definition and air around instruments and voices are much better than I expected. Backing vocals separate from the lead in a way that I have not heard from many cd players and the lead is right up front and clear as a bell...(Paul Simon -Graceland, Linda Ronstadt - For Sentimental Reasons, Lyle Lovitt and His Large Band). I could list all the cd's I have been listening to but it is enough to say that from classical to jazz to pop and even some really new electronic dance music the 4000 just plays what's on the cd and does a pretty great job of it.
The only real weaknesses that I have found are the variable volume control and some imaging problems and harshness associated with it. You must take the time to adjust this properly for your system. I have found that in my system at higher sound levels I am getting the best results with the 4000's volume set between 10 and 14 and my preamp at 1 - 2 o'clock. If I set the 4000 To anything over 16 and use a lower setting on the preamp the sound deteriorates noticibly and gets a bit harsh. Not serious but a change for the worse. If I go much below 8 on the 4000 and crank up the preamp the sound is a bit more laid back. The good thing here is when it is within the sweet spot it sounds amazing. I have a lot more experimenting to do here because there are so many variables. My preamp has variable input sensitivity and so do the power amps. As to the imaging I find that the extreme highs present a really wide sound stage but as it gets into the midrange it starts to lose some focus and I have even noticed some wandering of the drum kit. Maybe it was on wheels or maybe the recording mikes were moving...
;~)
My speakers are known for their extraordinary imaging and on an analog source they present a rock solid soundstage...but it could also be in the recordings because this unit does tell it like it is. Great recording = great sound and a poor recording will have you cursing the producer.
I have noticed some comments about the remote control from some other reviewers...wazzup? do you want to hold a brick in your hand. This remote is small and light and very responsive...I wouldn't change a thing. I also read some comments about the drive mechanism...well mine runs like a fine Swiss watch...noise free and tight. I only hope it stays that way for a long time.
Some things I would like to do are to try some other tubes and to run the unit direct to the power amps. I am lucky in this respect that I can control the input sensitivity of the MC-75's so I can get the 4000's volume control to an optimal setting. I don't think changing cables will be in the near future unless I can borrow some really great ones. The Spectral and the DisTech Silvers were about as high end as it got a few years ago and while I'm sure some experimenting might come up with a better match but I think I'm in pretty good shape here.
To summarize I can only say that this unit is an absolute joy to listen to and is in a class by itself at this price range. You might find other good cd players for under $2000 but I don't think you will find anything that sounds better. My 18 year old son who is critical of everything said to me the other night..."Dad, you would have to spend a sh*t load more to even think of getting anything better". The 4000 is by far the lowest priced component in my system...about the same price as a pair of cables or my speaker stands but it performs as true high end gear should...nuf said.

Similar Products Used:

My system components: McIntosh C-22 preamp and a pair of McIntosh MC75 monobloc power amps. Tuned 3 months ago by Audio Classics. Interconnects for these are Spectral MI-500. Speakers are Spica TC-50's with full Crosby mods on custom SoundAnchor stands and hardwired with solid core Randall Research cable. Also using an Entec passive subwoofer placed equidistant between the speakers and xover at 100hz with 12db slope. The 4000 is connected with 1 meter of Discreet Technology Silver. This is an all tube vintage system with a gorgeous sound.

Price (low); tight bass; smooth mids and highs, yet detailed. Flexibility in choice of tubes.

The standard Marantz feet, which are easily replaceable with the simple, yet remarkable AH! TjoebSjoes.

Real high-end CD-playback on a budget

In only three years time the Dutch CD-player tweaking company AH! Tjoeb has managed to establish an enviable reputation among audiophiles and music lovers alike. With their ground-breaking modification and fine-tuning of standard Marantz CD players the company brought true audiophile playback quality within everybody’s reach; not just the well-heeled, (sometimes) blasé high-ender who doesn't blink an eye when confronted with Wadia or Audio Research money. AH!'s debut player, the Tjoeb 98, set the trend in affordable, audiophile and at the same time idiosyncratic (read: tubed) CD-playback and was released back in 1998.

Its successor, the model 99, build on the 98's strength and was hailed on both sides of the Atlantic as a sensational best buy, comfortably outperforming players costing four to five times the 99s sub-500 dollar sticker-price. The most prominent feature of the 98 and 99 was, of course, their tubed output stage, a first in this price bracket. It gave these machines an effortless, smooth, analogue-like soundquality. Both players were based on a rather humble run-of-the-mill Marantz, the CD 38.

When Marantz decided some time ago that the 38 was to be replaced by the new model 4000 and supplies of the 38 eventually dried up, the tweakteam from Eindhoven had to look elsewhere. Quite logically, they settled on the 4000.

Research and development

But the new AH! Njoe Tjoeb 4000, released on the brink of the new millennium, pretends to be much more than merely a replacement for the 99. The R&D team, led by Frank van Duyvenvoorde and Herman van den Dungen, put more than nine months of research into the upgrading of the standard CD 4000. Painstakingly evaluating various power supply and circuit board lay-outs and their impact on soundquality. Reportedly, during this period different brands of resistors, capacitors and OpAmps were subjected to listening sessions by an experienced panel.

The 4000, like the 98 and 99, is built around the well-proven Philips JAN 6922 military grade dual triode. No surprises here.

But check this out: Powersupply buffering is increased to more than 30,000 uF. After extended evaluation the team decided that this was to be the 'right' amount of filtering. Very large capacity filter banks reportedly can slow down the sound, as is often the case with big power amplifiers.

The high voltage supply to the tubes is now stabilized (before it was not), while filament supply is in parallel and sports increased capacitance; it went from 3,000 to 6,600 uF.

The supply voltage of the current-to-voltage converters is also stabilized and separated for the left and right converter.

Supply voltage is no longer drawn from the drive-supply but from the high-voltage rail for better supply rejection.

The input signal capacitors are Vishay/Ero types while Wima MKS4 capacitors are used in the output.

New muting relays and new circuitdesign make sure that the "clicks" that were audible between tracks with the Tjoeb 99 are now history.

Hands-on experience

The new 4000 even treats the technically minded owner to plenty of hands-on experience. Want to experiment with different OpAmps? Just swap the (excellent) standard BurrBrown OPA604 for, among others, the AD797 from Analog Devices. IC-sockets make them user replaceable parts!

Or maybe the output voltage of your Njoe Tjoeb isn't quite to the liking of your preamp and could do with some adjustment. No sweat. The 4000 lets you choose between no less than four output voltages which are set by fixed resistors for optimal player/preamp matching. These resistors provide 5V - 2.5V - 1.25V and 0.7V values, with 2.5V being the standard setting. Want to change it? Just grab a soldering gun and sharp knife and solder or cut one of the "bridges" on the circuitboard. No wire is needed, just solder. This scheme is quite an (audible) step up from the previous method of voltage adjustment which was done by tiny trimpots.

But the home-tweaker's wet dream surely must be the generous variety of available tubes to experiment with in the 4000's output stage. Consider this: the 6922/ECC88/6DJ8 family of dual triodes is so widespread that you could be changing tubes forever. Apart from the Philips JAN 6922s, which ship by default, Amperex 6DJ8 Bugle Boys spring to mind. Or Mullard ECC88s. Or Philips E188CC SQ GoldPins... . Did I experiment? I couldn't resist dropping in my Siemens E88CC SQ GoldPins for the ultimate in refinement. By the way: when changing tubes you will notice another nice touch on the 4000. The tubesockets are now integrated into the PC-board, flushmounted, so to say. It's a rugged, durable and at the same time elegant solution.

Until now I've been discussing the internal differences compared to the 99, but there are external ones too:
For starters, the 4000 has the excellent, fully floating Philips VAM 1201 transport mechanism on board. That's not external, of course, but when this new transport sticks out its tongue it does so quite a bit smoother and quieter than the old CDM 12.*'s somewhat clunky drawer; thus adding to a more luxurious 'feel'.

Furthermore, there's a coaxial digital output, should you wish to connect an outboard DAC. Like the 99 the new player comes with a variable output for remote control volume setting. And last but not least, the 4000 sports a headphone output, great for late-night listening.

Better sound?

But does the aforementioned barrage of technical refinements lead to sonic benefits? - because at the end of the day that's what we're after: better sound. Well, the proof is in the pudding, as they say. I will get to that in a minute.

I hooked up the Njoe Tjoeb 4000 in "standard" mode - with the Philips 6922s, BurrBrown OPA604s and 2.5V at the output - with the rest of my gear:
Jadis JP 30 preamp, whose linestage I'd treated to those luxurious Telefunken ECC83s; Quad II poweramps, brought up to spec by Dutch distributor Trans-tec and expertly modified for general (pre-amp) use by Enno Maas. The amps are equipped with original Mullard EF86s, NOS Philips milspec CV378 rectifiers and, last but not least, NOS Genelec KT66s.

- The overhauled Quads remind me of my 1962 Leica M2 which had a new shutter installed recently; like the M2 the Quads are in business for yet another forty years -

Make no mistake about NOS KT66s. In a well-designed amp these kinkless tetrodes can give 300Bs a run for their money. They're all about 3-dimensionality, purity of timbre, lushness and whatever other qualities you like to attribute to tubes. Transport those features to the Quad's hand-wound output transformers which go from 10 to 50.000 cycles within 0.5 dB and you may begin to appreciate what these 15 Watt, pure class A babies can do to Quad ESL 63s.

But then again, you don't really believe 15 Watts of tube power is sufficient to drive 86dB sensitive full-range electrostatics with some sort of authority, do you? Believe it or not: I recently got breathtaking results from a ridiculous 5 Watts of single-ended power with a pair of directly heated triodes.

Replacing my trusty Tjoeb 99 in the Jadis/Quad/Quad system there were immediate hints of what the Njoe Tjoeb 4000 was about, even before it had fully warmed up.

For starters, I let Leo Kottke's "Ojo", from his '69 Takoma album "6- and 12-String Guitar" rip through the ESLs. Leo's lightning-fast finger-style playing demands the ultimate in speed and trans-parency from any playback gear. Often time-smearing messes up the proceedings as Kottke weaves his wicked patterns. Where the 99 couldn't quite keep up with the pace and complexity of the music the 4000 left the whole thing unimpaired. Suddenly it was a lot easier to stay 'on track' when Kottke pulled out the stops on his Gibson B-45.

One of the purest, most honest recordings I've ever come across, in terms of sound-quality as well as artistic integrity must be Kathleen Ferrier's "Blow the Wind Souther-ly". It's a collection of traditional British folksongs, lovely recorded by Decca from 1949 through 1951. This is mono at its best and probably done with a single Neumann M 50 or U 47. Ferrier is in top form throughout, with only the piano backing of Phyllis Spurr or John Newmark behind her. Never mind the, at times, clearly audible tape-hiss or occasional clipping of the mic preamp. The Njoe Tjoeb 4000 made it so easy to ignore these minor technical shortcomings and cut right to the essence: Ferrier's silky smooth, joyous alto. And despite the mono format there were plenty of ambience clues to contribute to the listener's illusion of "being there". Reverberation and decay lines could easily be traced until they hit the recording tape's noise floor. The occasional cracking of the planking. The magnificent Steinway grand, a few yards behind the singer. It was all there for the taking.

"Horowitz in Moscow" too, always has been a powerful musical experience. The pianist's 1986 'comeback'-recital to his native Russia after an absence of more than 60 years made a deep emotional impact on his audience. Horowitz warms to the cheers and bravo's and by the time he reaches the zenith of his recital, the Russian composers Rachmaninov and Scriabin, many in the audience are weeping. The way Horowitz plays it, with his inimitable romantic flair, this is indeed music of a hallucinating power. And it was the Njoe Tjoeb's resolving power that made it possible to listen far into the soundstage, picking up nuances I wasn’t aware of before. All this is presented in the most natural manner, without sounding artificial or in-your-face, as is so often the case with digital play-back. Down under, Horowitz's powerful, resonating bass now had an even sounder foundation. Just as important was the near total absence of digital 'ringing' notorious for damaging the upper registers of the piano. True, Horowitz was 'famous' for his sometimes rather bleak, flinty treble, depending on how he had his Steinway regulated. But here everything is in splendid order - and the 4000 tells it like it is.

Conclusion

When designing any kind of gear, in the end it all has to do with dedication and perseverance. With looking critically at circuit details and not being afraid to come up with daring, user-friendly solutions - like the output voltage adjustment and interchangeable current/voltage OpAmps. The AH! Tjoeb-team has once again shown what is ultimately possible technically within a modest price segment and how this approach translates into better sound. Where the overwhelming majority of CD-player manufacturers is quite happy to churn out the usual mediocrity, AH! Njoe Tjoeb went the distance. Bravo!

Associated equipment:

- Jadis JP 30 preamp, with Telefunken ECC 83s in the linestage
- Quad II poweramps, with NOS Philips CV 378 rectifiers and NOS Genelec KT66s
- Quad ESL 63 loudspeakers
- Siltech cable used throughout
- AVM and AH! AC power conditioning
- Solid Steel and Target racks and stands

Similar Products Used:

AH! Tjoeb 98 and AH! Tjoeb 99

Smooth yet detailed, non-fatiguing sound, price

I really tried but couldn't think of any

I can't say enough good things about this player. It makes
the world of tubes accessible to anyone willing to try. The
bass response seems to be just as good as others (this is a
frequent complaint about tubed products). I'm using the
stock tubes still (not unhappy at all with their sound), but
I'm also looking forward to playing around with different tube upgrades and feel that is a definite advantage to this player as well.

Assoc. equip
Aragon Soundstage
Pass x150's biamped
PSB stratus gold i's
PS Audio p300
Alpha-Core Goertz MI 2 spk. cbl
Wireworks balanced Y cable int.

Similar Products Used:

Onkyo, Mark Levinson, Toshiba, Sony