Who's been a naughty boy then...

[AJSki2fly]

Well after much wrangling with my conscience, and trying to work out if I was doing the right thing I have made not one but TWO changes to my system in a short space of time, actually I suppose three really.

My best friend of over 40 years who is also into Hifi has recently been going through various upgrades to his system over the last, as a result he offered me his Vienna Acoustic Mozart SE's speakers which he had not used for about 3 years due to buying others for his system and he had just not got round to selling them. Well I thought I would give them a go and it seemed like the right time as my better half had started making noises about the H2's in the living room. So I collected the Mozart's in early January from my friends, and whilst there we listened to them with his amplifier, an ALLNIC T1500, and they worked very well together.

Anyway I took them home and set them up with my amps, and I was rather pleased with the result but I felt something was missing from what I heard at my friends with his ALLNIC. Yes they worked well with my amps but I just felt some detail and clarity was not quite as good. So an amp itch was started.

The Mozart's were a surprise and work very well in our lounge, I have them 4.5' from the wall behind and the bass is good, they are slightly warmer than the H2's but are a very detailed, musical and easy to listen to, so they are here to stay.

After a week or so of listening to all sorts of music my feelings remained the same with respect to the amp and I discussed with my friend. He suggested I talked with Richard at Lotus HiFi where he got his amp from in case he had a demo one for sale or might be able to look out for one for me. So I sent Richard an email explaining, he responded "No sorry the ALLNIC amplifiers hardly ever come back or get PX'd for an upgrade and I only have one on demo which I need to keep. What do you have and what would you like to do?". So after some thought I told Richard about my Renaissance amps and I did not want to part to part with much cash, if any, so I told him about my Wilson Benesch ARC's (last pair made,virtually mint sat upstairs unused) as well. Richard went off and did a bit of investigation, and after only 24 hours Richard came back with a great deal for a brand ALLNIC T1500, PXing my gear. So I took the plunge and said yes and a few days later took my gear to Richard, I then just had to wait 5-6 weeks for the ALLNIC to be made and sent from Korea. Richard was very helpful and it was a pleasure doing business with him.

So the result is below, the ALLNIC T1500 MKII arrived yesterday by UPS via Lotus HiFi. My friend and neighbour put it in place for me replacing the Vincent (on loan from my friend) as I am currently recovering from a heart triple bypass operation nearly 3 weeks ago, so cannot lift more that 5-6lbs at the moment.

Well I am rather pleased and surprised by the T1500 even new out the box it is an improvement on the RA-01's, which I thought would be hard to achieve.

The key reasons are:-


Great and improved mid range, making for a better overall tone
Bass has tremendous definition, depth and control
There is more detail across the frequency range
I think there is better attack and clarity as a result


So putting all the above together I think the ALLNIC T1500 is a rather special amp and would take some serious beating which I suspect would involve a serious spend. Considering I have just taken it out the box and set it up and played a few songs and the radio for about an hour before doing some serious listening I think the result is very impressive. I also have yet to put in my PsVane 300B’s which I presume will give an even better result (we shall see). For now I will continue as is and enjoy the music. If you are in the market for a integrate single ended 300B then you would be well advised to give one of these a listen, they are very well made and sound fabulous IMO.

I actually think I may be reaching the end of the HiFi upgrade road for me. I am still tinkering with my TT which sounds pretty good, but I I to decide if I can improve it with a better cartridge or not. The issue is if I buy another cartridge it could be an issue if I then change TT and ARM as well, but that depends. I have a couple of TT's in mind both either of which I would probably buy a new arm as well, so if I change cartridge on the way I just need to ensure it would work in either I suppose in case I end up going for another TT/ARM combo. But financially that won't be happening for a while.

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[struth]

Hope your health is on the upturn Adrian.... Nice write up:)

[AJSki2fly]

Hope your health is on the upturn Adrian.... Nice write up:)

Thanks Grant, I am healing up quite well after being turned inside out so to speak. I think that the bad angina I was suffering from nearly all the has diminished, I certainly don't get it at rest now. I will now for sure once I can get exercising more and pushing the old ticker, that will be the proof of the pudding I think, but so far it is looking and feeling good.

[tapid]

Those goodies should cheer you up mate !. Like that wall stand for t/t btw. Anyway wish you a speedy recovery :)

[Macca]

Great when a plan comes together. And even better that you could trade in all the kit you weren't using for a brand new amp. Is Korean hi-fi the next big thing?

[AJSki2fly]

Great when a plan comes together. And even better that you could trade in all the kit you weren't using for a brand new amp. Is Korean hi-fi the next big thing?

I don't quite think so:- from there web site "Allnic Audio Labs, founded in 1990 by Mr. K.S. Park, is based in South Korea. Previously, Mr. Park co-founded Silvaweld, a company renowned in its time for transformer-coupled and single-ended-triode tube designs." If you look at their site they make quite a range of amps and other gear now and have got quite few good reviews of equipment.

ALLNIC T1500 MKII review from Monthly Audio(S.Korea’s magazine) (translated)

"Single-pole triple-pole 300B single-drive to enjoy the world of sound integrity. Any audio file is a proposition in your heart. Allic's T-1500 is a vacuum tube integrated amplifier that brings it to the real world. And it's not surprising that the US stereo file was uploaded to the A-Class in the Integrated Amplifier category from the 2012 list of recommended devices, as it has a big gift of broadband and deep bass playback.

This global bestseller has been renewed with the MK2. It has been only two years since the ST version that upgraded the permalloy output transformer for seven years after the original. As MK2 became, bias method changed from fixed to self-bias method. Sound quality and driving force have already been given priority to the protection and stability of the vacuum tube because it can sufficiently cover the technical skill and know-how of the interstage transformer and permalloy core transformer. As a result, the driving method of the output stage was changed, and instead of the two composite PCL86s, the two triple-pole 6SL7 and 6SN7 were assigned to the roles of the short pipe and the drive pipe respectively. The driving force still remains, but the overall sound is more relaxed than the previous one,...."

There are various reviews of the MKI version out there as well I believe the ALLNIC T1500 itself has been around since about 2010. Personally I think it is a very, very good amp, it delivers a great deal sonically, very musical.:)

[YNWaN]

The Allnic gear is really very handsome looking - particularly so in black I think.

[Macca]

It does look tasty.

[AJSki2fly]

The Allnic gear is really very handsome looking - particularly so in black I think.

The build quality is extremely high, my friend who introduced me to ALLNIC amps said that it is now a small family business of about 8. Mr Parks is a music lover and takes great pride in building high quality product that sound great. He has passed his knowledge and skills on. The amp came with a simple instruction book, with clear do’s and don’ts And at the back what was a nice touch is a build check list signed and dated with the names of who worked on it and when, the final check and sign off is Mr Parks.

Hopefully they will continue to maintain a high standard in the future.

[Crackles]

Using an Allnic phono stage at the moment that I borrowed from a friend. It is excellent. Really effortless and just does everything very well.

Unfortunately I have to give it back next week!

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

[mikeyb]

I tried to buy an Allnic phono stage online from a well known HiFi dealer that had it advertised on a couple of forums and eBay, but when I enquired they said it was sold, still advertised on eBay and their website weeks later and had even been readvertised as still for sale. Needless to say I didn't bother asking again, would have liked to have heard it though as they always seem to be well reviewed.

Bought something else instead [emoji6]