Doge - 100% LUA ??

[Tom_H]

OK, after 3 hours burn-in time its not really credible to
give a review. However, first impressions of the sound are very good!
It strikes me at once how good the higher frequences are. No hard caracter at all even at loud volymes. The presentation is powerful.
After work today, it's been burning in for 24 hours.....

I have some comments of Stentors pictures though.

-Mine doesn' have the white plastic block on the transport.
- On stentors small sticker on the transport there are a lot
of text with numbers and then it sais "Philips China". On my there
are no numbers, only "Philips China".
- On the stentors big transformer it's not written "LUA Apassionato" like
it is on mine. I'm not sure if this is due to the way they have placed
the big transformer. From my memory of yeasterday it seems that my big
transformer is mounted lying down and Stentors is standing up....

I'll have a closer lookout when I'm back home this evening.
The differenses are very puzzling.

Perka, please let us know more about the sound. Maybe within the next days you will find the chance to give us your "after burn in" impressions. So far I believe this is an outstanding player. Last night I put my old one into ebay. Right after sales I will order the Doge........

[Tom_H]

Stentor, please let us know about your progress with Fedex. As we all are more or less self- importers, this is of interest for all of us.

I cross my fingers for you. Good Luck.

[Perka]

On the back there is a red lamp to check the phase.

Do you know if is it to be on or off to be OK?

The manual is in chineese...

[Tom_H]

Perka, I can not say wether the lamp has to be on or off. BUT why don't you use your ears??? (I think that is much more easy than learning chinese........... )

[China]

Hello Perka,

if you really can't tell by hearing , scan me the page and I'll check.

[Erzkanzler]

Or use Babelfish:

http://world.altavista.com/

Regards
Martin

[stentor]

I am actually negotiating with FEDEX. Now, they pretend that the tube and the CD player was broken before the sending.

I feel that I will have fun...

They have no chance : i am a lawyer and I will not give up, that's sure.

[Perka]

Now its time to say some more. Just one first word. I have not tested the Droplet XLR outputs so far.

The Doge/LUA is a really fantastic machine. I doubt any would be dissappointed. Surely a Accuphase cd presents things diffrently (I have heared the dp-65V with Lavardin, the dp-55V and dp-67 with the Accuphase E480), but not necessary better. Accuphase is more clean and electric, Lua is more analogue and emotional.

The higher frequences of the LUA are much better than those on the Droplet (RCA output). The Opera tends to roll off a lot which tends to be boring in the long run. The Dynamics and force of the music is also better with the Lua than the Droplet. However the Droplet is excellent in air and room perception. If you play a disc with gospel or church music with the Opera, everything is soo smooth and pleasing. The Lua also makes this very well, but in a different way. There is still some burn in time (after now 60hours) of the LUA before one should be sure. Droplet is on 175 hours. I also would like to switch the tubes of the LUA to a better quality, even if I’m not sure I would gain so much in doing so. The sound I have to day is high end at a very low price.

I’m testing the Droplet on XLR outputs today in a different system. That may be a different story. The two french reviews (among those one by J Hiraga) sais it’s a lot better this way. Well, we will se.

Finally a note. I had to remove the small ferrit coil (green and copper visible on stentors picture after the red and black cables) which is the first thing (after the small blue capacitior) the 220v current meets going in after the IEC/fuse. This actually improved the sound even more. This coil is a must in according to CE demands, but destroys the sound a bit, or rather you miss a bit of the cd potential.
My friend with the operaudio 2.2 mk3 also removed this coil (its much easier, its actually placed in the IEC metallic box before the circuit). The sound improved dramaticly.

[teiki arii]

All chinese tubes were intact. I immedeatly chanched the 2 x chinese AT7 into 2 x Siemens ECC81. Still waiting four the for Ei Yugo gold.
So do you also want to know about the sound?

Hello everyone,
I don't either speak german, I am a new one on this forum but a friend of Stentor...As you can watch in my signature, I have got two CDP: Jolida JD-100H coming back from tweaking next week and a Cayin CDT-17A in repair in China...
I wanted to introduce myself in this post because I know - I should say "we" since I lent my 12AX7 tubes to the community and the half of my stock has been lost or stolen - the ECC83...
As I remember, there are 4 x 12AX7 and 2 x 12AT7 in the Lua/Dodge.

For the 12AX7 family, the tubes that come back as the best ones are:
- RCA 5751 black plates double or triple mica, like 12AX7 but a mu=70 in stead of mu=100 for 12AX7: so less gain but gretaer in music....
- New JJ/Tesla ECC803-S with long plates!!! (not ECC83S)

For the 12AT7 family:
- RCA 12AT7
- Mullard CV4024/12AT7WA...


NB: as you can notice I have changed the 12AX7 in my Jolida - and Cayin HA-1A - by a 12AT7 and it's great, according to all the forumeurs who tried it in France. But I don't know if you can tranpose it in Lua/Dodge?!

best regards,
teiki.

[Tom_H]

Hi teiki,
A very warm welcome to our small but fine forum. It seems that you have tried a lot tube replacement. For me that sounds very interesting. I am not experienced in that field and so I like to read and learn more about that.

BTW: What is the problem with your Cayin CDP as you have sent it back to China for repair?

Have a good time here at the Forum.
Best regards,

[teiki arii]

Hi teiki,
A very warm welcome to our small but fine forum. It seems that you have tried a lot tube replacement. For me that sounds very interesting. I am not experienced in that field and so I like to read and learn more about that.
BTW: What is the problem with your Cayin CDP as you have sent it back to China for repair?
Have a good time here at the Forum.
Best regards,

Hello Tom_H,
thank you for your warm welcome! Firstable, sorry for german people who can't understand english but I do not speak your language...I send you an MP to tell you what's happened... Please, feel free to ask me for any explanation about tweaking and AOP....

[China]

Hello Perka,

thanks for the first review. If I interpret your comments correctly, by now you tend towards to the Doge rather than the Droplet.
Let's see if you get a different result through the XLRs, other wise I seriously will have to compare both myself.

[China]

Hello Teiki,

Welcome also from me and I directly have one small request.

Could you post your tube comparism somewhere dedicated (own thread) in this forum again ?
It would be highly appreciated as otherwise such valuable information would be buried within this thread.

Thanks.

[teiki arii]

Hello Teiki,
Welcome also from me and I directly have one small request.
Could you post your tube comparism somewhere dedicated (own thread) in this forum again ?
It would be highly appreciated as otherwise such valuable information would be buried within this thread.
Thanks.

Here it is:
http://www.roehren-und-hoeren.de/phpBB/ ... 5419#15419

[China]

[Perka]

One test I made.

[Perka]

Another.

[Perka]

Another. You can also see the primaire cd31 which were chansless
against both droplet and appassionata.

[Perka]

[2285b]

Hi Perka, nice pics

I´m sure you can abstract your auditive experiences... I´m very interested in the Lavardin - P360 comparison.

Regards
Axel