Albarry M408 Monoblocks

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Originally Posted by Richard

Well the nva amps have developed since those days in many ways, I get lot of the old stuff traded in for upgrades as I give good trade in value, check them out and upgrade and then sell them at 1p start on ebay. So I get plenty of chance to compare.

I have told you how the system works, cough up :smoking: if no likeee you get refunded, just 'cos you are an admin on a minor forum :eyebrows: doesn't give you special privileges.

There are NVA users here and they have given very good and accurate accounts of them see Jerry (JandL100) and Gromit, and others come in occasionally. If you want to read them search the archives, there is a problem though you should deal with as you search does not allow three letter words and many manufacturers are three letters. You should change the search program. Anyway enough of nva as I said many times I am not here to promote nva it takes care of itself, I am here to scratch itches and frustrations that have bothered me for many years about this industry and online community gives good ranting room if allowed, so thanks for that.

No time yet for T/T, it is a future project. Talking about T/T take a look at this it is direct sold so is exceptional value for money and a very interesting cosmetic design and sounds bloody good.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/INTRODUCING-TH...QQcmdZViewItem

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cracking looking turntable!
and some blistering reviews from people who own one!
nice one richard!;)

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Originally Posted by Marco

Interesting looking turntable. It sounds Italian (I tried to see where it was made but I couldn't find it - could it be Arezzo?) so I'm not surprised it's good ;)

I'll "minor forum" you! It's far from minor in terms of the impact it makes and the amount of activity on it, I can assure you, and it's getting less "minor" each day...

You know my policy regarding auditioning things. It might be different if I was in the market to buy an NVA product, but as I'm more than happy with my valve amp that's not remotely on the menu. It hardly makes sense to buy something just to listen to it. I was just curious to hear what your stuff is like - it increases my 'library' of listening experience, which I then use to make recommendations to people, and of course you have many hundreds of 'Guests' reading the forum every day. No worries :smoking:

Marco.

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Then I repeat *yet again* sigh!

Start a bake-off (get together) section on the forum and promote the concept. Also while I am at it sort the search out so it accepts 3 letter words.

SRM is Stuart Richard Michell. He is a mate of Doug Hewitt of Manticore fame (or notorietry :o)). Stuart used to run a Hi-Fi and s/h record shop at the front of the building Doug used as a factory in Biggleswade (daft name for a town #2). Doug went bust late 90's Stuart progressed to setting up one of the first and I think the best turntable odds and sods accessories store on ebay and does well with it. He also knows and works with Mike Harris of Moth Marketing (another fly by night character :o)))) who (used to) runs the Hi-Fi News accessory business.

So some lateral thinking from Stuart was to add all the bits and bobs together and get acrylic case / base made (same company we use for our cases). I don't know for sure but probably Doug is still involved in the T/T in the background as there is much in their technically from the old Mantra, which was an exceptional and sadly missed T/T for the money.

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Originally Posted by Richard

...Also while I am at it sort the search out so it accepts 3 letter words...

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Seeing as you asked so nicely I'll have a look into it, unfortunately something that sounds so straight forward requires a staggering amount of work to complete without killing the server speed, creating a vast database and requiring a selection of indeces to be referred to upon each search.

Why is it so important?

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Originally Posted by Filterlab

Seeing as you asked so nicely I'll have a look into it, unfortunately something that sounds so straight forward requires a staggering amount of work to complete without killing the server speed, creating a vast database and requiring a selection of indeces to be referred to upon each search.

Why is it so important?

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SRM - AVI - NVA as recent examples here, and many many more, so many manufacturers names are 3 letters so a forum member who wants to search for posts about those products cant.

I was offered these a few years ago..


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...ARDIE-LW02.jpg


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...ARDIE-LW11.jpg


..are these the same ones?

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Originally Posted by snapper

I was offered these a few years ago..


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...ARDIE-LW02.jpg


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...ARDIE-LW11.jpg


..are these the same ones?

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Yup! thats them.

Feck!

Maybe I should have bought them.

Was also offered this..


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...ARDIE-LW03.jpg


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...ARDIE-LW07.jpg


...amongst other things.

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Originally Posted by Marco

I had the pleasure of listening to a pair of these excellent amplifiers last night, through Naim DBLs in a friend's system, which were as good as any solid-state amps I've ever heard, and apparently available for around £350 a pair. They drove the DBLs to frightening levels with only 40W.P.C (!) and sounded as musical as music itself.

I would say they're as good if not better than Naim NAP135s (or even a NAP300) and not far off my ECS EA1 monoblocks, which considering the price difference is remarkable. They also look fantastic, IMO, in a retro kind of way, and are built extremely well.

Does anyone know their history, and that of Albarry as a company? Apparently the BBC used the M408s. I thought I've seen Richard mention the Albarry name before. Basically, I'm just curious to know a bit more about them from people's experiences. I feel privileged to have heard them, and wouldn't hesitate to recommend the M408s to anyone as a superb second-hand buy - and this from a (now) dyed-in-the-wool valve aficionado! :)

It's another excellent example for me of an old design that competes with and in many ways outperforms modern amplifiers, which of course some people think is nonsense ;)

Let's hear it from anyone who knows about Albarry!

Marco.

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By a strange quirk of fate, I might be taking a pair of these in p/ex tomorrow afternoon. If I do, I'll post a few pics. I might even host an evening event here to demo them – if anyone is interested.

If so, I'll use my Funk V or Funk Saffire if Arthur K gets around to delivering mine into one of my Harbeth pairs, or my JBL L100a Century speakers in single pair or stacked pair configuration.

Watch this space.

Hi,

Not by accident some one mentioned they are better then the Naim 135 /300, the albarry gave Naim amp knockout with better deeper bass and clearer airier heights. All that with super relaxed and natural sound presentation matched only by the best SE valve amps. Moreover, the albarry can practically stand any load with amazing balance and coherency without the need of filters, supercaps and other expensive accessories.
I run the Albarry 1008m with passive step attenuator preamp along side Hedlund Horn ( lowther EX4 ) 100+ db sensitivity … people often mistaken the Albarry to be a valve amp… do you understand what I mean? 100w Solid state AMP driving super sensitive horn and giving warm relaxed sound? Was it a dream – No! ; could it happen? Y E S! , reason why? A L B A R R Y!

Of course that the well established Naim corp. and its followers in the media and market could not bear the "shame"...henceforth better success to these amps in Italy, Japan and Germany. "The small Rise and big fall of British best solid audio Gem"... that's the name of this audiosad story.

Hi.

Welcome to the forum :)

I presume then you use Alberry amps?

Marco.