Score! ENBEE ZX1 & ZX 80 pre + power amp. Anybody used these (or any ENBEE gear)?

rlisin

Quad 4 life
LONG POST, so if you want to see a photo first, scroll down :)

I am having a new-gear-happy moment and thought I’d share. Just so you know, this is the moment that happens when I get new gear, turn it on and am amazed by how good it sounds. To me, this is basically the best moment in this hobby. I want to play all my favorite albums to hear how they sound on my new treasure. Even better if the unit is a complete gamble, not something many people know and recommend. It does not happen often - few pieces I’ve experienced it with before were my first vintage Marantz receiver 2230B (big stepup up from what I used before), Exposure Super XX amp, Sonab R3000 receiver, Korvet 50U-068 S amp, Onkyo C-S5VL CD/SACD player, Bonsai Ideal speakers.

Here’s the story:

2 days ago I’m browsing our local auction site and I spot a name that does not ring any bells. At all. Now, that’s rare. Not that I've heard all brands, but I usually at least know of them. It’s a pre/power amp combo, with a price that’s within my ‘experiment’ budget. I figure, 135 dollars for a pre/power amp combo is OK. No further info, no specs, just a reference to a minor problem with the preamp. Few bad photos, but what I can see on them keeps me interested.

I hit google and find some info on the manufacturer - apparently based in Delhi, of all places, run by a Mr. YM Nishi Nakra who’s been making audio gear (radios, speakers and amps) since the early 1950s. The brand has a cult following in India, supplied gear to recording studios and is praised for a very natural sound presentation. Now I'm hooked.

So, not 5 minutes later, I am on the phone with the seller, inquire about the problem with the preamp (ground loop-like hum when EQ controls are turned on, fine when the controls are off, and they can be switched off), I bargain a bit, because why not, get the price down 20% and strike a deal.

2 days later (yesterday), the separates are here. I leave them for 6 hours and let them get to the room temp, turn the power amp on, measure DC on speaker terminals (6 mV on one channel, 10 mV on the other, nice!). I feed a source to the power amp and check it with headphones first, just to be sure. Good sound, no apparent problems.

The system I have on at this moment is an Inkel pre/power amp (similar power, mos fet,same as Sherwood CP-6040S/COP-6020S). So I run the ENBEE power amp first with an Inkel preamp. I like! Not as much bass as with the Inkel power amp, but not bass-shy either, a bit cleaner, fast, detailed, pleasant, and pushes my Quadral Aurum 5 towers without any effort.

I check the pre with headphones first - trick I use to spot any problems with pre amps before they have a chance to play tricks on my speakers, I plug headphones to pre amp output sockets via an adapter. There is indeed a hum when I turn on and adjust EQ controls, but with EQ off, and even with EQ on but flat, the pre amp works perfectly. So I put it in the system.

The sound is very, very good. Lively, engaging, dynamic, but not aggressive. Vocals sound natural, details are nicely emphasized, and overall it sounds very well-balanced and fun at the same time. And that’s a real achievement in my book.

I’ve had two bad moments with this system. When I first listened to both power and pre, it sounded a bit gritty (particularly vocals). I was powering the power amp from a power strip and the pre from a socket in the power amp. After I plugged the pre into the power strip - no more gritty sound.

Then, today I decided to listen to vinyl. I put on a record and simply hate the sound: squeaky, lacks bass, basically crap. I run my TT through an external phono pre to exclude the problems with the TT, record, cables – no, it sounds OK. Then I noticed that the switch for MM/MC carts is depressed to MC position. I switch it back to MM and voila! perfect sound. Phono stage in this thing is really good.

So, the only things left are a bit of cleaning and getting rid of the EQ controls bug (I will probably never use them, but I want them to work all the same).

Today I found more info - apparently Mr. Nakra was making audio gear until 2005 or so, when due to old age he shut down his business and continued to provide service for his products at home. He was in mid-80s at the time. The units I have were manufactured from the early 1990s, apparently until mid-2000s. This means that they were designed by a guy in his 70s.
All units were hand assembled.

I've also finally found specs for these units. They’re just numbers, but still:

ZX1 control amp:

Rated output pc-0.775 volts,
Max Drive Capability-10 volts,
Freq Resp-CD,Tape, Tuner, Aux-10 Hz to 80 KHz +/- 0.01 dB,
THD-0.001 % 20 Hz to 20 KHz,
IMD 0.01%,
S/N Ratio->96dB
9 band per channel equalizer controls (switchable)

ZX80 power amp:

Freq Resp at 1 Watt;10 Hz to 80 KHz +/- 0.2 dB,
Power Response-80 Watts per channel at 8 Ohms- +0-0dB-20 Hz to 20 KHz,
IMD for any combination of frequencies for instantaneous peak power of 200 watts or less- <0.1%,
Distortion at 1 Khz-0.01%.


This is what the system looks like. Photos of the backside and the power amp nudie are from the seller, I'll take better pictures when I have a moment.

10540270.jpg


10540290.jpg


10540321.jpg


So, any of you fellow AKers know/use(d) ENBEE? Share, share!
 
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I haven't but I am so glad to see photos of it and some commentary. Looks to be reasonably well made and engineered. I'd say it sounds good. But never heard any.
 
"Reasonably well made" was exactly my impression from the photos. I did not expect it to sound as good as it does. Reminded me a bit of NAD 3020 - an amp that sounds much better than it should, considering how it's built.
I guess it's a result of the fact that audio gear was basically not imported to India due to high customs duty on electronics until late 1990s. They simply had to make it themselves, also high end gear. Local brands that made these things had enough customers to flourish.
 
And the preamp is fixed! One of the opamps on the right channel EQ board was shot. Replaced, and hum is no more!
 
There comes a time in every audio enthusiasts life that he's totally surprised by some gear.

I've been reading about the handmade amplifiers of Mr. Y.M. Nishi Nakra of Delhi and his ENBEE amplifiers.

The production had stopped long ago and these units are seldom on resale as most of sales were concentrated around Delhi only.

Finally got my hands on it. It was well under my experiment budget so took the call and got it shipped to Indore.

The units are well laid out for a homegrown product and God do they sound good.

Well Good is a relative term here.......they sound different.

I feel to audition any audio device we must audition it with tracks which are frequently played by us. As it's easier to spot the difference.
The vocals are so distinctly separate from the music and every instrument is getting the attention. The vocals have body here man. There is not muddying in music.

Maybe I'm still high on euphoria but I swear I could differentiate between crash and clash cymbals.

The stereo imaging is very crisp and defined. It's not a complete dual mono design but there's very little cross talk.

Last night plugged it at 9 and threw at it, everything I had got. All genres. The works.

It handled everything with ease.

Couldn't stop till half past midnight. The sound was very sweet without inducing any sound fatigue.

The amp is quite. No hiss, no noise even at volume being at 12 o'clock. After Norge this is second Indian amp that I experienced.

Liking something is a relative term is audio but this thing sounds so different from various Sony, Kenwood, Marrantz amps I've listened to.

And I like it infact I am smitten.

11.jpg 22.jpg 33.jpg 44.jpg
 
And the preamp is fixed! One of the opamps on the right channel EQ board was shot. Replaced, and hum is no more!
Hi,

You were right. The Opamps in equalizer sections are noisy. You did suggest to replace 741s with TL071CP.

Turning off the equalizers makes it totally silent.

Now to the task at hand. I think I can procure the TL071CP opamps. I will replace all 16 of them. Are they Drop-in replacements ? I may look at the phono section of the preamplifier too as it gives hum. As you suggested will try to replace the capacitors.

Do share the views and suggestion.

Thanks
 
Yes, I had 2 problems with the EQ, one was loud hum caused by a bad opamp, that's fixed. The other problem is that after that repair the EQ section still has background noise because the opamps are noisy. Replacing them with low noise equivalents should remedy that, but I haven't done that because I normally don't use the EQ anyway. And it's a lot of soldering (128 legs total).

I think TL071CP are drop-in replacements, at least that's what I've read in few places. Do let us know if replacing them helps with the noise. In theory it should, but I haven't done that yet, so I don't know how much improvement can be expected.
 
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