Posted by HCSebastian on December 20, 2010 at 14:22:31

Hi all!
I already wrote about the fun I had assembling the TU-8300. I think, now after 2 month listening, it gets time to write a little about my first impressions.

Why the TU-8300? Well, I always wanted to own my own tube amplifier. Being a student, with just a few bugs in the pocket, doesn't really provide a good basis on buying a tube amp. During my electronic enginieering studies I collected several tube amp layouts and even though I might have had the time to built one, I never had the money.
No after years I moved from Germany to Canada and therefore I had to leave my old Rotel audio system on a 230V continent :-(

And there was the chance! I needed a new cd-player, new speakers and a new amp. I stumbled over a Elekit review on 6moons and then over the TU-8300. I ordered it, I assembled it and wow! It was so much fun! At least for 10 hours :-(. But now the first problem, I didn't have any speakers and also no CD-Player :-(. I did some research on the web an found the cornu spiral speakers (cornu.de). There were several resources on the web available to built some DIY cornus. I teaked them a little. The original ones have some trouble with the mids and my changes resolved those.
Meanwhile I bought a LG Blueray player and was able to listen to my TU-8300.

:-D Wow great! My fahter owns a burmester CD-Player and an italian tube amp. There are several CDs we've got in common and some of them are real reference CDs to me. CD's where my fathers system clearly let you here a person going through a studio and leaving it in a back door during the recording.... My bloody TU-8300 system lets me also hear this. My Rotel system didn't...

Then I had a look at this forum and I found out that there are some guys modding it with V-Caps and Telefunken tubes. I contacted Victor and he wasn't quite sure if the new Cutf V-Caps might not just be more expensive than the TFTS and not really better... I insisted to get Cutfs and he sent me all modding part within a few days :-D Thank you again!

Meanwhile I bought a Emotivia ERC-1 CD-Player! An even awesome player! Also a great company! The first player they shipped had trouble with the electrostatics around the reading head and didn't work properly. They sent my a new drive free of charge and now I also had a new and great player!

The results on the mods:
the V-Caps really instantly change the quality of the sound! Louder, l ower and more detailed bass, louder and clearer hight's warmer mids and also more detailed. Well what exactly do I mean with detailed? Just imagine you have a singer which sings his songs and on most audio systems you just can hear whether the Singer is up in front, left ,right or more in the back of the recording. With the added mods you can hear parts of breathing, the tongue, the positioning to the microphone and no matter how loud you turn the volume, it never hurts,.. it is just natural and clear. You can hear whether a guitarist, got recorded like 1 microphone in front of the face and one directly on front of the guitar (over or under the acoustichole), or a microphone very near to the mouth and the guitar more or less directly into the soundmixer...
The bass got very much better with the V-Caps and the Telefunken mod.
First, without the mods, I thought: "Well great! I can even hear how the strings vibrate in the air" After the mods it was completely differnt. I can now hear the resonances in the body of a cello or a contrabass. It seem's to me like sitting in front of the artist on the stage or inbetween the musicians inside the studio.

When I first read about the TU-8300 I saw somebody asking whether 6 Watts are enough... we'll in my case it is more than enough. Even when I try to listen to music really loud ("No way to talk to somebody else in the room") my volume poti ist just used a 25% of the possible maximum. My speakers are two 4" Tangbands with (I think) 25Watts.
I guess the backloaded cornu spiral horn construction is quite efficient, but I think nobody should be scared to have not enough power for usual speakers.

You might now say. Well, how can you say, the mods changed all this....
I measured it. Not really professional, but when both SPL recordings are not professional then the change is still the difference due to the mods.
They linearized my SPL quite a lot. First my system had a little mountain between 800Hz and 2Khz,... now it is more or less linear from 30Hz - 8Khz (microphone seems to have some trouble on the even higher frequencies, no real stable result there) . No real mountain anymore (approx. 5dB-10dB before the mod).

I can encourage everybody to try those mods they are worth it.
Those persons around me who've listened to the system prior and after the mods said: "Well before the mods it sometimes seemed like somebody is singing though a wall made of thin paper and now he stands directly "surround" me".

It's a shame that TU-8300 is so unpopular and ERC-1 two. Even so bad is the fact, that the inventor of the cornu speaker is no more allowed to sell his speakers. They provide a completely different base for sound stage resolution. You hear the difference when a musician moves on his chiar just 5cm from let to right while playing the guitar. Some recordings are so awesome that you have the feeling that the whole wall is one piano keyboard reaching from left to right and the finders wander up and down and up and down the keys...

But now a real critic and I know I can't blame Victor for this:
"The TU8300+Mod+ERC-1"-Kombination destroys your thinking about all your favorite CDs :-( Merely 2/3rds of my cds are unlistenable because they are recorded so bad. Even the new CD by Nora Jones is not really enjoyable (at least some tracks) It is so bad recorded. The instruments use the whole stage and the singers are sometimes just a little spot directly on the speakers (or the other way around)... that doesn't really make fun. Most of my old 80ies hardrock favorites are unlistenable. Flatsound no dynamic just like a band behind a curtain...

Keep a little soundsystem as a backup solution when you once think to invest into a great system!

One CD I never liked is "Choclate Genius". Now I really like it. It is so well recorded. Evethough you don't really like the music, the instruments are well scrumbled over the whole sound stage. And you can really see the contra bass string right infront of your eyes.

I'll give the current system a few month and after that I'll hope to find some information on other tweaks, like transformer mods, or I even try the KT88, which Victor often names.

Have no fear to assemble those Elekit Kits! Everybody with a little time and patience can built them!

Happy listening!
Sebastian