This little gem finally arrived in the mail today. Many of you may have seen it at GPAF this year, and may have listened to it with headphones. Jef didn't play it much on the speakers due to the fact that he had better amps to showcase than this one. But, I happened to hear it on the Pi Two Towers with Skip when I first got there and thought it sounded quite nice! Very neutral compared to the few other tube amps I've heard. I've hooked it up to the NAD Bee CDP running to the Towers for the moment to get used to it. My intention is to eventually hook the Seduction and TT up to it for a completely analog TT rig. It puts out just shy of 1 watt, and I haven't had to move the volume knob past the 12 O'clock position yet (I don't listen very loud). It's got great bass and of course great mids and highs. Very nice!

Thanks Jef!!!

On another subject. I have just ordered a Ripper half-kit
from Jim Hagerman. I'll set up my turntable and experiment
digitizing LPs for convenient use on the Squeezebox and
have the table ready for direct listening as well. I already
have a Bugle I put together about 4 years ago. Did you
settle on a phono stage? I'd be happy to ship the Bugle to
you for a while -- you buy the 9 volt batteries (they last
perhaps 10-12 hours if you don't leave it on).

Skip

Given that, I found that 35 WPC SS was not enough - they lack clarity at the volumes I listen, but this is nonetheless in my ~500 ft^2 living room (15 ft cathederal ceiling) so it's not a large space relative to the capabilities of the devices - I'm not stressing them.

I just don't have much faith that 1 or 2 tube watts would do the trick for me, but reading what many people say it certainly ought to. Sort of confusing.

Congrats Shane! Keep us updatedon how you use it.
-akhilesh

After listening to some Keb Mo for about 30-40 minutes tonight, I quick switched the cables around back to the NAD 320Bee amp and fired up the CD again to the same song I was listening to. First impressions were that the bass was a little tighter (but no lower sounding) and the sound was more flat (maybe neutral is a better description--hell I don't know all these audio adjectives!) for lack of a better word. Sounded fine, but did't have the image and air that the little amp had. I had to turn the volume up on the NAD to achieve anything like the 12B4, so it was basically just louder which didn't accomplish anything. The 12B4 just made it sound like the band was more in the room with me than the NAD. Nice.

Now, according to Akhilesh, his 12B4 amp sounds very good on his K-horns. Maybe I need to start thinking about upgrading to some more efficient Pi's down the road!