Repairing them seems to be the biggest issue, which is a shame as they are really good
Repairing them seems to be the biggest issue, which is a shame as they are really good
Loves anything from Pain of Salvation to Jeff Buckley to Django to Sarasate to Surinder Sandhu to Shawn Lane to Nick Drake to Rush to Beth Hart to Kate Bush to Rodrigo Y Gabriela to The Hellecasters to Dark Sanctury to Ben Harper to Karicus to Dream Theater to Zero Hour to Al DiMeola to Larry Carlton to Derek Trucks to Govt Mule to?
Humour: One of the few things worth taking seriously
Perhaps the biggest issue is the electric bill!!!
Loves anything from Pain of Salvation to Jeff Buckley to Django to Sarasate to Surinder Sandhu to Shawn Lane to Nick Drake to Rush to Beth Hart to Kate Bush to Rodrigo Y Gabriela to The Hellecasters to Dark Sanctury to Ben Harper to Karicus to Dream Theater to Zero Hour to Al DiMeola to Larry Carlton to Derek Trucks to Govt Mule to?
Humour: One of the few things worth taking seriously
Location: Scotland
Posts: 1,940
I'm Tom.
I had a Chameleon Ruby power amp a few years ago. I didn't find it all that exciting to be honest, even though it didn't offend me in any way, so I suppose you could label it as a "neutral" amp. As I recall I replaced it with an Aaron Millenium power amp and that really did get my juices flowing. Dumbest thing I ever did was then selling that amp to buy a Musical Fidelity Trivista 300 integrated.
Location: Antwerp, Belgium
Posts: 1
Hey guys,
I stumbled on this forum while looking for the Chameleon 1400 S. Recently, I've come into a pair of these, them being discarded by a studio in which I have friends.
I considered myself lucky until I heard them: both of them produce massive broadband hum, though one more than the other. Not being familiar with the brand, I suspected faulty design, something along the lines of magnetic leakage from the toroidal transformer or such. Happens to great brands too, years ago I had to outrig a mains transformer from a Harrison graphic EQ for that reason.
But tonight I've read this thread, and it seems these beasts have some renown at least. Also, I was suspicious, because sounding like they do now, I was wondering why they had ever been installed in a professional studio in the first place.
So my question is: can anyone of you confirm they can sound great, and have not been designed carelessly, so it will be worth my while to try and restore them.
My oscilloscope today showed an enormous ripple of 1 to 2 Volts on the +/- 24.5 V preamp and ancillaries (fan and relais) power supply, whereas the +/- 84.5 V main stage PSU ripple stays nicely on or below 200 mV. Can anyone of you fall in with my opinion this is not normal?
Thanks in advance!
Hi 'hexdiy',
Welcome to AOS!
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Marco.
Main System
Turntable: Heavily-modified Technics SL-1210MK5G [Mike New bearing/ETP platter/Paul Hynes SR7 PSU & reg mods]. Funk Firm APM Achromat/Nagaoka GL-601 Crystal Record Weight/Isonoe feet & boots/Ortofon RS-212D/Denon DL-103GL in Denon PCL-300 headshell with Funk Firm Houdini/Kondo SL-115 pure-silver cartridge leads.
Paul Hynes MC head amp/SR5 PSU. Also modded Lentek head amp/Denon AU-310 SUT.
Other Cartridges: Nippon Columbia (NOS 1987) Denon DL-103. USA-made Shure SC35C with NOS stylus. Goldring G820 with NOS stylus. Shure M55E with NOS stylus.
CD Player: Audiocom-modified Sony X-777ES/DAS-R1 DAC.
Tape Deck: Tandberg TCD 310, fully restored and recalibrated as new, by RDE, plus upgraded with heads from the TCD-420a. Also with matching TM4 Norway microphones.
Preamps: Heavily-modified Croft Charisma-X. LDR Stereo Coffee. Power Amps: Tube Distinctions Copper Amp fitted with Tungsol KT-150s. Quad 306.
Cables & Sundries: Mark Grant HDX1 interconnects and digital coaxial cable, plus Mark Grant 6mm UP-LCOFC Van Damme speaker cable. MCRU 'Ultimate' mains leads. Lehmann clone headphone amp with vintage Koss PRO-4AAA headphones.
Tube Distinctions digital noise filter. VPI HW16.5 record cleaning machine.
Speakers: Tannoy 15MGs in Lockwood cabinets with modified crossovers. 1967 Celestion Ditton 15.
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Location: Near Saffron Walden, Essex
Posts: 7,142
I'm Dave.
We had a couple of these amps some years ago when the company was looking for Hi-Fi dealers. They really didn't float our or our customer's boats and we were completely under-whelmed. Powerful yes but uninvolving.
I don't recall them being all that expensive, though we thought them over priced for the performance. Potential buyers should listen before they buy unless the price is low.
I have only heard Tim (MAD) 1400s and they been very clean and Transparent
they gone up against Brystons Audio Note and NuForce with good results I have not heard in my own system which is always the ultimate test Tim uses balanced mains and high quality silver cables and uses these to not only listen to music but to test as well Getting these repaired is not easy but did see a link on a DIY site
Loves anything from Pain of Salvation to Jeff Buckley to Django to Sarasate to Surinder Sandhu to Shawn Lane to Nick Drake to Rush to Beth Hart to Kate Bush to Rodrigo Y Gabriela to The Hellecasters to Dark Sanctury to Ben Harper to Karicus to Dream Theater to Zero Hour to Al DiMeola to Larry Carlton to Derek Trucks to Govt Mule to?
Humour: One of the few things worth taking seriously
YES, I do believe they're worth the effort of restoration... if you can do so without too much financial expenditure. You'll also be keeping a piece of recording history alive
I was also in attendance at Tim's place when we were auditioning MyClapton Grand MM loudspeakers. I preferred the speakers being driven by the Chameleon as opposed to the other two amps which were on hand i.e. Audio Note and NuForce.
Even though it lacked the beguiling warmth and subtlety of the Audio Note on some recordings, it did a lot to improve the immediacy/timing and impact of recordings that require those qualities for better appreciation. Perhaps matching with a more sympathetic speaker (slightly warmer-sounding) would be highly beneficial
Overall, I believe it's a better all-rounder (as in the Jack of All, Master of None sense though) as it's neutrality doesn't overly favour any one musical genre at the expense of another; great as well if you like your music loud without any obvious sense of strain
Regards,
Malek
MALEK
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