ECP Torpedo III [indexed in first post]

From my experience, the tubes I've used that work best with a HD800 make the HD650 too warm for me, and vice-versa. I use a Philips Miniwatt which is kind of similar to an Amperex, and its brilliant with the modded HD800. I'll second SteelCannon's suggestion if you want an all-rounder while keeping the sound less tubey. RCA black plates 12AT7/12AV7 are another type of tube that don't come across as tubey, but with more meat in the bass.

 

If some of you don't frequent Head-Fi, you may not have seen these:









These were some tests I did early on with RMAA, so take them with a grain of salt. However, doing the best I could to keep things constant and doing this all in one session - more or less - I think they're pretty good as a basis of comparison among the various tubes. I apologize that I didn't have 7062's at the time, but I think the 6829 is pretty close in listening. In fact, the 6829's (I have bunch, now) have more bass and overall richness than my pair of Amperex 7062's.

That's not why I'm posting this, though. It has to do with what I would characterize as a "stealth" tube for the T3 - the 12AZ7. Doug mentioned these very early on and while not trying them personally, noted that their specs would make them good candidates for the T3. I tried an ebay pair soon after and didn't seem to like them (maybe I got a bad pair). In any event, I've purchased more and tried them since then and they are particularly splendid for 300 ohm headphones (HD800's).

If you note in the graphs and tables above, at 300 ohms, the 12AZ7 simply out-performs every tube. At 0.003% THD, its distortion is an entire magnitude lower than every other tube, save the EH 12AY7 at 300 ohms, and is one-half of the distortion of that tube. I can confirm through listening that this is the case. Detail, highs, bass, etc. - are extremely clear and dynamic. Yet, compared to the 7062's, 6414's, and 6829's with their triple-getter construction - or even the EH, which by all appearances is very high quality construction, the 12AZ7 looks cheap and almost a throw-away. Maybe because of that, prices are not that bad, either, considering they do tend to get lumped in as 12AU7/12AX7 alternates. Still, several ebay listings have them around $7-$10 each, even lower (one pair is currently Buy It Now at $9.95, but they may not be matched).

Anyway ... while you guys were talking about tubes, I thought this might be of some interest.


P.S. If I ever get through with these damn taxes, I'll try to put some of these on sale at beezar - 6829's, 6414's, and 12AZ7's. I may try to swing a deal for some 7062's, too, if you think anyone would be interested.

 

I saw these at Head-case and i just had to post them here.

I think Tmoney is now the owner of one of the most beautiful amp i've ever seen. Its tasteful and discrete, yet it just pops out when compared to its surrounding and you just cant help but notice it.

Cant wait when doug does a run of these.

http://www.head-case.org/forums/topic/9980-ecp-audio/?page=10

Í'm personally looking forward for the L3

 

Do we have a thread on SBAF dedicated to ECP Audio other than this one?

Anyways, I love the way my amp came out. The final product exceeded all my expectations. @dsavitsk really took care of me with this. I put some pictures up in the bay-area mini-meet thread but I'll repost them here.

The amp is a DSHA-4, done in a power-amp style as I already owned a preamp.

 

Looks fantastic!

 

I am currently running the Bottlehead crack speedball with my HD650/600. If I get the torpedo 3 would it be an side grade amp for the HD650?

 

I'm of the opinion its an upgrade, especially in terms of clarity. This is more apparent after doing upgrades like the cap bypass. Tone is a whole different can of worms, the amp is actually very slightly bright with stock tubes, and even the warmest Mullards won't bring it near to the tone of a Crack. Depending on your priorities, it may or may not be a worthwhile upgrade.

 

Thanks for the info. Seems like the torpedo 3 would be a nice project when my crack gets fully modded out. I could redo the wiring for my crack to make it more optimal, also cap upgrade and stepped attenuator. Some of the upgrades seem very pricy and at that point selling a crack for crack2 or torpedo3 makes sense to me.

I'd try to audition the torpedo3 when I get the chance seems like the change of tone could be a deal breaker for me.

 

I'm a much bigger fan of the Torpedo III vs. the Crack myself. It's not even close in my book, but I'm a bit extreme in that position. If you're looking at about the same price, see if you can't give a Torpedo III a listen and if you like it better, sell off the crack and don't bother upgrading.

 

I agree, it's not even close going off the crack I heard.

 

Well, I did something over the last week - completed this weekend - that turned out to be a mistake, but maybe it was fortuitous.

I thought I had purchased the correct Mundorf EVO caps that you guys have used and posted about. I didn't realize that you guys were purchasing the greater than $80 ea, Silver-Gold-Oil versions. Instead, I purchased the Aluminum-Oil versions at $13.95 ea. Same size and everything, and yeah - it was a trick getting them in. Still, as Mister Rogers and Fierce Freak indicated, there is ample headroom. Because of that, there's actually pretty good side room, too. The trick is getting the lengthwise spacing right by putting two in the middle toward the front and two on the outside in the back. The concern is keeping the leads away from the Cinemags in front and away from the regulators in front of the tube sockets in back. Of course, if you have Doug's CCS boards and have mounted them on the bottom of the PCB, the regulators aren't an issue.*

Anyway - long story short, even with the $14 version Mundorf's, it's raised the amp's performance to another level. I would put it above a tube change, in fact, although the two are probably interdependent to some degree.

So, I'm not sure about the $80+ version of the Mundorfs, but the cheaper ones seem to be quite an upgrade over the Epcos.


* I like these caps so much and they're not really that much more expensive than the Epcos that I'm probably going to work on a documented lead-bending scheme that will work every time. The first thing would be to locate the regulators on the bottom of the PCB, if you aren't using Doug's CCS's.

 

Yea, FlySweep has the Aluminum+Oil EVO's in his; definitely a nice upgrade over stock. The SGO's are better, but not by a lot. I've modded a bunch of amps, but TIII has been better than most in regards to modding 'headroom'; each tweak has yielded clearly beneficial results.

 

See? I'm still confused. I thought they were both EVO's instead of EVO and SGO.

Just so you know, I recommended to someone to buy a kit and ship it to you, since you've done that a number of times. Maybe he can discuss with you with caps he wants. I'm not sure I want to mess with contorting the leads on $80-$90 caps.

 

More impressions of the TIII from the Bay Area meet this weekend..

@brencho :
"...for tube amps, it seems like the Stratus was on the more warm and intimate side, the EC ZDS was on the more aggressive side, and the Torp3do was somewhere in the middle. I suppose the biggest eye-opener was that the T3 didn't fall behind the other big boys at all, and seems like a no-brainer for a killer tube amp at half the price. The EC ZDS has the looks, and seems like end-game material for sennheisers, but the T3 doesn't fall too far behind (if at all)..."

@NoStream :
"Torpedo III - I thought this was great. It's actually a pretty tubey-sounding amp, but still powerful and not aggressively colored. But tubey. Comparing it to TMoney's new ECP transformer-coupled SS design, it was less grainy but also less resolving. I preferred it with the 800S. I thought it held its own vs the ZD as well. If I were looking for a Senn amp in the low $1xxx range, this would be at the top of my list."

I'm not sure if @drfindley 's TIII is modded in any way, but regardless, it's really cool to see that it's able to hang with some of the most respected, TOTL, SBAF amps.

As soon as I get some time, I'll re-arrange the first post/index into categories (tubes, mods, TOTL comparisons, etc.).. so visitors can find relevant info on the TIII quicker & more effectively.

 

The SGO's I'm talking about are still the EVO's.

 

Regarding the driving of planars, feedback seems to be: Most HFMs are a bad pairing; HE1K, LCD-3 are a good pairing. I wonder where ETHER-Cs would live? Did anyone at the Bay Area meet try that combo, as I think both were present.

I've always thought Cinemags to be ballsy. What's the limiting factor here? Thanks.

 

Could have missed it earlier in the thread, but do you happen to have a pic of the SGO EVOs installed? I know we talked about measurements previously, but 40mm just intuitively seems tight...

 

Looks like this: #65

Yep, it's tight.