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Thread: montesquieu's STA100

  1. #31
    Join Date: Apr 2012

    Location: South West of England

    Posts: 263
    I'm Will.

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    Small update, all the voltage rails are confirmed as working OK!
    Radford Revival
    www.radfordrevival.co.uk

  2. #32
    montesquieu Guest

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    Quick update and a fuller report to follow ... I picked this up from Will's place yesterday. Bit of a schlep to North Cornwall but definitely worth it to avoid trusting it to a courier. (Also lovely to meet Will and Steve at last). Petrat made the trip too picking up his amp. and no doubt he'll be along to report findings in due course ...

    Anyway I'm sure I'll do a more lengthy write-up at some stage, and it's early days with a brand new set of tubes (Sophia Electric KT88s - which I'm reliably informed are identical in their internal design to more mundane Shuguangs, despite their attractive blue glass envelope - though claimed to be some premium iteration of the design, which may still be possible of course). But I thought I'd quickly summarise early findings.

    The STA100 was already the best amp I'd heard with my Tannoys, that's including £10k's worth of Leben 1000P which spent some time here, as have quite a few other high-end valve and solid state amplifiers from EAR, Pass, C-J and others. (The Leben ran it pretty close though I have to say).

    Initial impressions mainly comprised relief that Will's efforts haven't let out the magic fairly dust. It still sounds like the superbly musical amp I handed over for renovation. Phew for that - first hurdle cleared.

    Second thing that jumped out at me was a sense that the already rock solid bottom end - which always sounded as resolute as a solid state amp - is even more textured, defined and articulated than it was before. Will had showed us a few things on his oscilloscope before we got away yesterday but the stand-out one was approx 0.2 distortion at full power at 1kz ... followed by a demonstration that distortion was barely any higher (0.3%) at 40hz .. an astonishing performance for a valve amp.

    Will also noted that the work he has done has also significantly improved the high frequency performance and I think this is what lay behind what I was hearing when noting my third main impression, which was the amp's fantastic ability in presenting a sense of the venue in which the recording too place. This isn't in any way to denigrate the STA25 which is a wonderful amp with Tannoys and with Monitor HPDs in particular (which are a bit harder to drive than earlier Monitor Silvers, Golds or Reds), but the STA100 does seem to kick things up a level. Not just the 3D sense with stereo recordings, or a superbly dimensional 2D presentation with mono, but an incredibly real live sense of the recording space acoustic.

    I had a brief moment wobble in the evening after some hours listening when one of the NOS ECC88s I had given Will to use in the refurbished amp went crackly on me in the left channel ... I really have terrible luck with NOS valves ... but luckily I had some Brimars to hand - all good. Phew.

    Interestingly replacing a £30 / 2m interconnect I bought from ebay because my RFC cable was too short to reach with the STA25 in place also made a significant difference. I'm not the biggest cable believer but the RFC Mercury really lifted musicality up even further.

    Anyway I'm absolutely delighted with Will's work on this - I now have an heirloom quality piece of kit that not only sounds great but comes with the peace of mind of having been restored effectively to brand new, by a true craftsman.

    I intend to try out some KT90s (which is what I was using previously) though being a Radford I wouldn't expect a massive difference in flavour.

  3. #33
    Join Date: Jan 2013

    Location: Bristol

    Posts: 6,843
    I'm Justin.

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    Excellent news Tom. Enjoy. Looking forward to more audiophile rantings so typical of us types when we get something new

  4. #34
    montesquieu Guest

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    Quote Originally Posted by User211 View Post
    Excellent news Tom. Enjoy. Looking forward to more audiophile rantings so typical of us types when we get something new
    Looking forward to hearing the Lampi with it.

  5. #35
    Join Date: Jan 2013

    Location: Bristol

    Posts: 6,843
    I'm Justin.

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    Quote Originally Posted by montesquieu View Post
    Looking forward to hearing the Lampi with it.
    In about a month plus you are on...

  6. #36
    Join Date: Jan 2013

    Location: Bristol

    Posts: 6,843
    I'm Justin.

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    I think we all need a pic of the finished product in situ...???

  7. #37
    montesquieu Guest

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    Quote Originally Posted by User211 View Post
    I think we all need a pic of the finished product in situ...???
    Dark now. I'll take one tomorrow.

  8. #38
    Join Date: Apr 2012

    Location: South West of England

    Posts: 263
    I'm Will.

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    Here's some pictures
















    Radford Revival
    www.radfordrevival.co.uk

  9. #39
    Join Date: Apr 2012

    Location: South West of England

    Posts: 263
    I'm Will.

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    Missed a few!





    Radford Revival
    www.radfordrevival.co.uk

  10. #40
    Join Date: Apr 2012

    Location: N E Kent

    Posts: 51,624
    I'm Geoff.

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    Cor. Looks a treat!

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