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Akihabara shopping

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I would recommend Noguchi Transformer that is located in the bottom floor of Tokyo Radio Dept store, "Tokyo Radio Depato" in Japanese, it is quite close to the railway station just across the main street. They stock ISO Tango, Tamura and some other together with their own brand, Japanese transformers are not cheap but the prices at Noguchi give at least better prices than on mail order. Noguchi has a web site but it is only in Japanese, http://www.noguchi-trans.co.jp/
Tokyo Radio Depato is on the right hand side in block 13 of this map http://www.akiba.or.jp/map/

In the same building are some of the best vendors for passive components and tubes, note non-Japanese tubes are not very cheap in Japan and some US tubes are ridicously expensive.

Regards Hans
 
no experience in shopping there, but i've experience with Tamura transformers and i believe the F-475 is value for money for 45 and 300B (with proper operating point) as i own one and a couple of friends too. fortunately we have a tamura distributor here in the philippines for a very reasonable price.

some other audio related things you might pick up are denon cartridges and fostex drivers.

i have to agree that tubes are really expensive there as a friend of mine addicted to 45 tubes bought about a dozen pairs and we got some too in the u.s. for a much cheaper cost. now this person i'm talking about is addicted to 50 tubes and has about two dozen pairs now. :bigeyes:
 
I can agree about Denon and Fostex, there are several vendors that sell both so it pays to shop around, I have one DL103 and one DL110 that I bought quite cheap, Fostex is less interesting for me as I prefer Lowther but there are several shops that sell these drivers and horn enclosure kits as well, 2 of these shops are in block 6 in the map I posted before.

Regards Hans
 
Akihabara has the TRD and a few high-end stores. The TRD, upper level has a store that sells gold-plated connectors for about $2 each.

The real place to go is Tokyu Hands (department store 's crafts bldg) in Shinjuku - north of the station (look at a map). There are 7 floors with split levels. One of them is heaven. Tube kits using every known brand of tubes 300b, 6L6s, etc. There's also a tube CD player, speaker enclosures, speakers, and cartridges (not a big selection). From what I recall the kits start about $200. There are also parts. Small but lots of stuff.

One very kool kit is a LP kit that cuts a record using CDs.
 
Was in japan 4yrs ago, There we're alot of electronics shops in akihabara, but too bad I was not into Vacuum tubes before so I passed on the opportunity of really looking for tube stuff back then.

If I ever had a chance to go back there I'll know where to go.

Thanks
 
If you want Tango transformers Andix has the best prices.

Noguchi has best prices for Tamura.

You can find address and map at their web site: www.andix.co.jp

Use Altavista to translate.

Also they have their own brand of Amorphous Transformers at much cheaper price than Tamura, I used them to replace Tango XE20 for my 245 amp and they are very sweet. See for some comments on my system see: http://www.vt4c.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=504

The proprietor of Andix speaks good English so you can send him email ahead just to make sure he has stock.

In the same street (next building, look up and you will see a sign) as Andix there is another shop Classic Components, they have great selection of tubes.

BTW I will be in Tokyo next week, send me email if you want to meet up and we can go together.
 
Thanks for the tips.

I'm not going until the end of September so I have plenty of time to research.

Does anyone know where I can find more info on James transformers? All I can find are price lists. Do they have an official catalog?

Other things:

Is it worthwhile to visit Sakuma-san at the Concord?

I once saw a Japanese web-site that showed a vintage audio museum of sorts with lots of old Western Electric theatre gear on display. Does anyone know if this place is in Tokyo?

What about audio books and magazines? I'll definitely want to find a few back issues of MJ to bring home.
 
Regarding James transformers they have a Web site http://jianshin.myweb.hinet.net/%ad^%a4%e5%ad%ba%ad%b6.htm and as most other manufacturers, (Tango, Magnequest, Tamura, Sowther) they give only some parameters without saying under which conditions these have been measured.

I find it very difficult to compare output transformers from different manufacturers as they only give some scattered information without telling how they measured it, the only exceptions I have found are Tango, Lundahl and Plitron, they give quite extensive data at least compared to many others.

If you are interested in James transformers it could also be interesting to read this http://www.sacthailand.com/transformerTest1.html which describes a test of some different manufacturers including James.

Regards Hans
 
I'm in Kamata, and planning a ride (6 stops on the Keintohoku line) to Akihabara later today. Two goals in mind: buy used anime and J-pop/rock CDs for "bass pig" listening material when I return to the US, and to check out the vacuum tube audio market. The latter goal is to establish whether there is a market for me to relocate my shop to Japan.
I happened across this thread while googling 'vacuum tube audio Akihabara'. Nice to see fellow audio folks who are interested in Japan.
 
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