SET Asylum

RE: Ming Da MC3008-A schematic

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This Post Has Been Edited by the Author

In Reply to: RE: Ming Da MC3008-A schematic posted by cellcbern@yahoo.com on September 16, 2007 at 18:11:46

I can only give you some genereal observations and opinions of my personal experience with them. I am not affiliated with them in any way and we use many other fine amplifiers in our product dev. The build quality is some of the best i have seen at any price. They try very hard to use high quality pieces (Mundorf, Rubbycon, phillips etc.)knowing everyone will look inside and because they want good sound. Their circuits a fairly standard (RCA receiving manual etc.) and the wiring is exceptional by any standards.
As to the difference between the 300B version and 2A3 (MC 3008-A which we have) i cant say for sure though the Shuguang tubes are largely the same. The sound is very good and is quite powerful with those big 805s. You get a great deal of meat and presence. Upgrading is of course part of the fun but i think you would be very happy as is and not just "for the price". If you wanted to experiment with 300b/2a3 drivers it would be quite simple with this amp. I would not hesistate to recommend this amp to anyone as you could easily tailor the sound to your particular palette via some tube and cap rolling. I find that the mullard 12au and ax offer a better sound than the as shipped EH which are a little brite and etched. The Shuguang 2a3 is about as good as it gets. I have tried some NOS 2a3s and they changed the flavor slightly but never did we notice an "oh that is much better" scenario (we have the 2a3c)
Another amp that i am very fond of is their MC 300-A SE integrated. it is only 8 watts so it has limited utility but it sounds wonderfull and has a little more midrange bloom (as to be expected with 300bs as output tubes) and again the build quality is very good. I hope this helps and again remember that i listen to this on our speakers for 99 percent of the time. how all this would sound on lower efficiency boxes (i have heard the Ming Da stuff on Dynaudio and would rate it a poor match) i cant say. To do better from a sound or build perspective one would need to spend many multiples, 5 or more (with the exception of the Transcendent Sound amps) and then you would not have the night and day experience hoped for at that price point.

Edits: 09/16/07

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