Dynamic Turtle
31st March 2006, 17:32
Hi all,
Seeing as there are plenty of people out there tempted by the amazing prices of Chinese amps, I thought I'd post a mini-review of the above amps for all those thining about taking the plunge...
The MC67-HA (£380 delivered via DHL express from Ben at Chinese-hifi.co.uk) was well specced & built. The internals looked great, and I couldn;t find any negative reviews out there on the web, so I thought I'd give it a go. The built-in MM & MC phono stage was also very interesting to me. The MC845-C monoblocks had a good reputation out on the various forums.
Its worth mentioning that cattylink/chinese hi-fi should both be able to source 110v & 240v tapped versions, subject to a two-week manufacturing period. Both my pre & monos are genuine 240V rated and the wait is worth it IMO.
The preamp is pretty good. Build quality is fine - the internals are neat & tidy as always with Ming Da. Nice Wima caps inside too. Volume pot is an ALPS Blue though, which despite being the industry standard, could be better. The 6N6 rectifier valves are chinese junk. I'd love to replace these, though AFAIK there is no direct western subsitute to this tube, so you'll have to make do with them. The 6922's are Russian (reflector corp) and therefore excellent. No change needed here! The 2C51's are noisy Chinese crap and need throwing out. £25 will buy you a pair of NOS Raytheon 5670's which do a much better job.
MC gain is a bit low. You should be alright if you MC cart outputs 0.5mV, but any lower and you'll rally need to crank the volume up. The MC stage is surprisingly quiet though - I was expecting all sorts of hiss. I'm changing my cart to a high-output MC (2.5mV) so will be using the MM stage from now on. Hopefully this will have the same well balanced sound as the MC section. Halleluiah - the grounding socket is designed for 4mm banana plugs - something you don't see often enough. Makes life easy!
The volume knob is too small, which makes fine adjustment difficult. Also, the unit can smell of thermal glue (used to reduce transformer vibration affecting certain components) for the first month or so when it gets hot. Small quibble. Also - no remote, so you'll be shedding some weight on various trips to adjust the volume! Fortunately, the blue LED isn't too bright - a major bugbear for some of us.
The MC67-HA looks much classier in the flesh. I was worried that the black/gold/chrome finish can look a bit tacky in the pics. It should be worth noting that I'm using vibration dampers on all the tubes and have foculpods under the feet for extra vibration absorption.
Sonically, the pre-amp is much quieter than I had anticipated. Overall, I'd say it has a very traditional valve sound - euphonic & warm, but with enough neutrality and transparency to let you hear upgrades and changes further up the chain.
The MC845-C 845 monoblocks (£760 delivered via DHL express from Ben at Chinese-hifi.co.uk) are great. They come very well boxed and with 2M UK plug IEC cables!! How about that!! First thing that hits you is the size & weight of the OP trannies. Truly backbreaking stuff. If you haven't seen an 845 before, be prepared for a shock. It has the sort of girth that would make a girl elephant smile!
Finish on the latest models is very good. Nice shiny covers on the OP trannies, gold trim around the valve bases and WBT sockets round the back. Pretty good overall. There is a smell of "sweatshop" on them, so they will pong for a bit, though there is no thermal glue that I can smell.
The only flaw in terms of build quality that
I should mention, are the poor 845 sockets. These are of cheap construction and really need replacing with something a little more solidly machined. They don't grip the 845 valves firmly enough for my liking. I ordered some gold-plated ceramic replacements with my premium 845's for £13 each. Hopefully these will do a better job.
It is absolutely critical that you budget for a complete suite of new valves. The Chinese 12ax7, 12au7, 6sn7 and 845 that come with amp are all terrible. the 6sn7 in particular is extremely ropey and should be ceremonially burnt. How Ming Da can sully the quality of their amps by using this quality of tube is beyond me.
I guess you could make do with the others, but long-term, they really need changing. I've ordered replacements for all. 12AX7's are now Sovtek 12AX7LPS, the 12AU7 is now a Philips JAN 5814A, 6SN7 is now Brimar CV1988 and Shuguang Premium 845B's have replaced the stock versions. (please note that you can switch the 6Sn7 and 845 without re-biasing, however the Metal plate 845M runs cooler than the 845B and will need re-biasing, so be careful here).
£330 all in, which is a lot, but the sonic improvements have been well worth it...
The sound produced is awesome - WIDE soundstage, very tuneful bass and loads of power on tap (considering the rating is 20wpc, they can drive my 6ohm 86dB sonus faber monitors beyond breaking point). Treble again is very well controlled - none of that solid state brittleness here, just lovely, smooth airy highs. Delicious.
Weaknesses? Well, the midrange isn't quite as detailed or as full as I'd like. Lean is perhaps the best word to describe it. Don't get me wrong - its not a weakness per se, just less impressive than the tuneful, well-defined bass and smooth treble.
Overall, the sound is warm, euphonic and smooth. Instruments have real placement in the soundstage, and the stage itself is wide and deep like a mountain vista.
Other practicalities worth mentioning, are the amount of heat the MC845-C's generate. We're talking polar ice-cap melting levels of radiation here. Scary. Absolutely no way these should go on a rack or shelf - they need to breathe freely.
Hope this helps. Best regards,
DT
Seeing as there are plenty of people out there tempted by the amazing prices of Chinese amps, I thought I'd post a mini-review of the above amps for all those thining about taking the plunge...
The MC67-HA (£380 delivered via DHL express from Ben at Chinese-hifi.co.uk) was well specced & built. The internals looked great, and I couldn;t find any negative reviews out there on the web, so I thought I'd give it a go. The built-in MM & MC phono stage was also very interesting to me. The MC845-C monoblocks had a good reputation out on the various forums.
Its worth mentioning that cattylink/chinese hi-fi should both be able to source 110v & 240v tapped versions, subject to a two-week manufacturing period. Both my pre & monos are genuine 240V rated and the wait is worth it IMO.
The preamp is pretty good. Build quality is fine - the internals are neat & tidy as always with Ming Da. Nice Wima caps inside too. Volume pot is an ALPS Blue though, which despite being the industry standard, could be better. The 6N6 rectifier valves are chinese junk. I'd love to replace these, though AFAIK there is no direct western subsitute to this tube, so you'll have to make do with them. The 6922's are Russian (reflector corp) and therefore excellent. No change needed here! The 2C51's are noisy Chinese crap and need throwing out. £25 will buy you a pair of NOS Raytheon 5670's which do a much better job.
MC gain is a bit low. You should be alright if you MC cart outputs 0.5mV, but any lower and you'll rally need to crank the volume up. The MC stage is surprisingly quiet though - I was expecting all sorts of hiss. I'm changing my cart to a high-output MC (2.5mV) so will be using the MM stage from now on. Hopefully this will have the same well balanced sound as the MC section. Halleluiah - the grounding socket is designed for 4mm banana plugs - something you don't see often enough. Makes life easy!
The volume knob is too small, which makes fine adjustment difficult. Also, the unit can smell of thermal glue (used to reduce transformer vibration affecting certain components) for the first month or so when it gets hot. Small quibble. Also - no remote, so you'll be shedding some weight on various trips to adjust the volume! Fortunately, the blue LED isn't too bright - a major bugbear for some of us.
The MC67-HA looks much classier in the flesh. I was worried that the black/gold/chrome finish can look a bit tacky in the pics. It should be worth noting that I'm using vibration dampers on all the tubes and have foculpods under the feet for extra vibration absorption.
Sonically, the pre-amp is much quieter than I had anticipated. Overall, I'd say it has a very traditional valve sound - euphonic & warm, but with enough neutrality and transparency to let you hear upgrades and changes further up the chain.
The MC845-C 845 monoblocks (£760 delivered via DHL express from Ben at Chinese-hifi.co.uk) are great. They come very well boxed and with 2M UK plug IEC cables!! How about that!! First thing that hits you is the size & weight of the OP trannies. Truly backbreaking stuff. If you haven't seen an 845 before, be prepared for a shock. It has the sort of girth that would make a girl elephant smile!
Finish on the latest models is very good. Nice shiny covers on the OP trannies, gold trim around the valve bases and WBT sockets round the back. Pretty good overall. There is a smell of "sweatshop" on them, so they will pong for a bit, though there is no thermal glue that I can smell.
The only flaw in terms of build quality that
I should mention, are the poor 845 sockets. These are of cheap construction and really need replacing with something a little more solidly machined. They don't grip the 845 valves firmly enough for my liking. I ordered some gold-plated ceramic replacements with my premium 845's for £13 each. Hopefully these will do a better job.
It is absolutely critical that you budget for a complete suite of new valves. The Chinese 12ax7, 12au7, 6sn7 and 845 that come with amp are all terrible. the 6sn7 in particular is extremely ropey and should be ceremonially burnt. How Ming Da can sully the quality of their amps by using this quality of tube is beyond me.
I guess you could make do with the others, but long-term, they really need changing. I've ordered replacements for all. 12AX7's are now Sovtek 12AX7LPS, the 12AU7 is now a Philips JAN 5814A, 6SN7 is now Brimar CV1988 and Shuguang Premium 845B's have replaced the stock versions. (please note that you can switch the 6Sn7 and 845 without re-biasing, however the Metal plate 845M runs cooler than the 845B and will need re-biasing, so be careful here).
£330 all in, which is a lot, but the sonic improvements have been well worth it...
The sound produced is awesome - WIDE soundstage, very tuneful bass and loads of power on tap (considering the rating is 20wpc, they can drive my 6ohm 86dB sonus faber monitors beyond breaking point). Treble again is very well controlled - none of that solid state brittleness here, just lovely, smooth airy highs. Delicious.
Weaknesses? Well, the midrange isn't quite as detailed or as full as I'd like. Lean is perhaps the best word to describe it. Don't get me wrong - its not a weakness per se, just less impressive than the tuneful, well-defined bass and smooth treble.
Overall, the sound is warm, euphonic and smooth. Instruments have real placement in the soundstage, and the stage itself is wide and deep like a mountain vista.
Other practicalities worth mentioning, are the amount of heat the MC845-C's generate. We're talking polar ice-cap melting levels of radiation here. Scary. Absolutely no way these should go on a rack or shelf - they need to breathe freely.
Hope this helps. Best regards,
DT