• WARNING: Tube/Valve amplifiers use potentially LETHAL HIGH VOLTAGES.
    Building, troubleshooting and testing of these amplifiers should only be
    performed by someone who is thoroughly familiar with
    the safety precautions around high voltages.

Tube Preamp 'Clone' PCB copys on ebay (Marantz, McIntosh, etc)

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powertriode

powertriode

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Joined 2004
#1
Dear All,
You can buy 'clone' pcb's of the famous tube preamps on ebay pretty cheap, I was wondering if anyone had tried any?

Don't get me wrong; I know you only get what you pay for, I was just thinking of buying a couple to play around with.

They mostly seem to be listed by sellers from Hong Kong, who have very good feedback, so I don't doubt the seller's trustworthyness.

Does anyone have anything to report.
 
#5
Boy was I irked. I visited the site to find 1" size photos with a file size of 120K+. It took over 7 minutes for the main catalog page to load. I wanted to see what they have but no way was I going to wait.

I'm the file size whiner around here and boy did I whine to them. It'll be interesting to see if they do anything about it.
 
#7
hey Bill,
download an offline version of the website then you load it from your local drive. hehe it really depend on your isp.

hey Andrew
cool site. too bad the shipping cost so HIGH. like ouch. they're raising the prices soon too.
 
#8
Yes, the site is slow, I have a 512 adsl download and its slow but not too bad to me. As someone above noted you could just download the site to your machine and peruse easily.
It seems I am going to be the first one to test the waters, prices go up come July. I am ordering a cat sl-1 "special diy version" which supposedly has a better layout, a HV / LV regulator and
an R-core power trans all for ~ US$200.00. Shipping is US$60.00
yikes! but still a good deal methinks. I sent an email and it came back quickly, perfect English and all my questions were answered,
seems like a professional outfit, I'll see.

Andrew
 
#10
Cross-continent Internet can be a pain...

as I write this from London. Having been in HK and Bejing last March, I can tell you that the download times work in both directions. Depending on where I am in Europe, the same applies, too. Considering that the old days required us to send postal mail with stamps, I'm still happy with longer download times.

That said, my comments on the site look promising. I'm not a fan of cloned circuits of old preamps and amps but I'm seriously considering some of the cases for my next project. They take Paypal, too, which helps me as I finance my audio hobby selling stuff out of our well-stocked garage via ebay, using the proceeds via Paypal.

Reports if there's something of merit. I've purchased from the famous Mr. Juki of HK in the past and things arrived fast via international post. Hope this one goes the same way.

Cheers,

David
 
#13
Does anybody know which amps the DIYclub pcb's are cloning? One of them is the Marantz amp. I guess MFA stands for Musical Fidelity?
The offered PCB's look very promising, although one of the other DIY audio members did have some problems assembling a DAC PCB. The remote volume and input is also very tempting, it's just that the used volume pot doesn't look like a high spec one.
More experiences with DIY club anyone?

Thanks,

Jarno.
 
#18
Yes, M.F.A. was Moore, Franklin & Associates and most if not all of the preamp clones are at least 10 - 15 years old but that does not discount them. The CAT SL-1 changed since its first introduction is now at a MKIII status I think, so its still very much alive and still very highly regarded, even the early version is still well regarded although it was known to "abuse" its 12au7. Some of the other highly regarded clones available are the Matisse, the VTL and the Macintosh C-22. Of course they are not the same as the originals, e.g. I ordered a CAT SL-1 clone "modify" which is a red pcb but the layout is different and is claimed to be improved from the original, it costs US$14.00 more than the standard CAT SL-1 clone so it MUST be better 😉 Personally I just like the red colour🙂


Andrew
 
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