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Amp/Preamp Asylum: REVIEW: Glass-Ware Aikido Line Stage Kit Preamplifier (Tube) by amioutaline?

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REVIEW: Glass-Ware Aikido Line Stage Kit Preamplifier (Tube)

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Model: Aikido Line Stage Kit
Category: Preamplifier (Tube)
Suggested Retail Price: $149.00
Description: Aikido Dual Mono Octal PCBs
Manufacturer URL: Glass-Ware
Model Picture: View

Review by amioutaline? on January 23, 2009 at 19:07:50
IP Address: 96.36.86.246
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for the Aikido Line Stage Kit


Bottlehead Foreplay II and Paramours; DIYHIFISupply Ella; Hagerman Cornet2, Clarinet, and Piccolo; Cinemag switchable SUT; Audio Note Kits Amp One.

Over the past 8 years, I've built, re-built, modified and loved them all.

None have made the impression on me or the music I listen to as does the Aikido.

For 150 bucks you get 2 high quality boards that are amazingly flexible in the size parts they'll accept; mounting hardware, a .22uF Russian PIO coupling cap, a full complement of signal caps and resistors and 4 new production Tung-sol 6SN7s. Oh, there's also a switch that allows you to choose one of two output caps or both in parallel.Cool. That's a stupid-good deal!

There's also a 12 page users guide with schematics, parts suggestions and tables for various iterations including a head phone amp along with facts and hints about construction.

You're on your own for a power supply. My good friend Steve Brown provided a schematic for me to build mine with a $60 Hammond 370BX power transformer which yielded 350 vDC B+. The filter is a simple CLC with a 100uF Solen film, a 5Henry Hammond choke and a 47uF Solen film. I chose to build my boards with all 6SN7s so there is a voltage divider to ensure the proper differrential between the 2 tubes in each channel which John Broskie describes as 'upper' and 'lower'.

All together with a 17x10x3 steel Hammond box and 5 pairs of Vampire CMHex RCAs my total parts cost was less than $400.

I chose a 2.2uF Obbligato copper cap for my second output cap and that leads me to begin this review. After a fairly short time of listening to my Aikido with first one cap and then another and both together, I went back inside, removed the switch and it's wiring and jumpered the 2 caps together. The difference between them was subtle and could be more than accounted for by the difference in electrical 'size'. It appears to me that the Aikido circuit trumps parts choices in a way which I was previously unfamiliar with.

First impression is of astounding bass. I built the Aikido with 2 sets of outputs because I had been running dual sub-woofers but left them off to begin. To date, I have left them off. No component or combination of components which includes high dollar amps from KR and Renaissance has provided the quality and depth of the lower octaves as the Aikido.

After I got my mind wrapped around the bottom end I was hearing I was struck by an amazing level of detail throughout the entire frequency spectrum. Uh oh, I thought, all this detail will kill me and the music. I'm not the sort who wants or needs to hear lips parting and subway trains. Now that there is 100 or so hours on the unit, some of that extreme detail has subsided or I simply have gotten used to it. I've decided that, because I don't find it fatiguing, it's not detail in the perjorative sense but rather .

Clarity is the hallmark of the Aikido pre-amp. The bass doesn't merely have weight or depth but rather clarity. The highs aren't silky or airy or shrill or rolled off; they're whatever is on the recording. What was hinted at with the KR Audio VA340 or Kronzilla or Red Rock Renaissance is in full bloom with the Aikido paired with my Simple 45 John Tucker/Steve Brown design amp.

On the Vivaldi Flute Concerto, Chesky CD, it's far easier to follow the music as the timbres of the period instruments are far truer and reveal themselves better than ever before. Every acoustic bass, whether orchestral or the opening bars of Jacintha sounds more live and real and having a sound emanating directly from vibrating strings and wood. If you care to listen for it, and the piano is miked from underneath, you can hear the wooden creakings of the Stenways undercarriage. Where it exists, tho' I simply noted it and went back to hearing the musical line plus all the subsidiary sounds of the score, undistracted by such details.

I find myself listening to selections over and over, something I've seldom done before. Listening to music through the Aikido reveals something more with each hearing as if the component is teaching me how to listen. I don't know how many times in the past month I've heard Copland conducting the Boston in his Appalachian Spring or Christoph (Captain Picard) Eschenbach conducting the Organ Symphony and I still don't feel as though I've had the total experience I now know resides in them.

John Broskie has created something wonderful with this kit. It isn't much beyond the average builders means or experience and may challenge you, as it did myself, to build at least a power supply from a schematic, something I hadn't done before. You have to do your own metal work and read and re-read the manual carefully. Where I made mistakes I invariably found they resulted from glossing over important bits in the text.

I don't expect anyone to beleive the quality of this unit without hearing it. It's that good and I expect that it's goodness has a universality that makes IMHO or YMMV irrelevant.


Product Weakness: ya can't just buy one
Product Strengths: see above


Associated Equipment for this Review:

Amplifier: SET, direct coupled, parafeed 45
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated): as reviewed
Sources (CDP/Turntable): VPI HW-19 IV, SME III, Benz Ace and Grado Sonata; Marantz SA-8001 SACD
Speakers: Pi Pro 4
Cables/Interconnects: Whie Lightning
Music Used (Genre/Selections): Classical, classic jazz, classic rock
Room Size (LxWxH): 12 x 18 x 8
Room Comments/Treatments: real traps and corner bass traps
Time Period/Length of Audition: 100 hours +
Type of Audition/Review: Product Owner




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Topic - REVIEW: Glass-Ware Aikido Line Stage Kit Preamplifier (Tube) - amioutaline? 19:07:50 01/23/09 ( 3)