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.
So, any of you fellow AKers know/use(d) ENBEE? Share, share!
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.
So, any of you fellow AKers know/use(d) ENBEE? Share, share!
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