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Scythe amplifier
Thank you for the great review! I bought the "Scythe Kama Bay AMP 2000 Rev.B" amplifier, after I have read your great review, and I am very impressed by the quality of its sound.
Thanks,
Franz - E-mail: F.Mueller (at) onet.at

LC
Dear Franz, glad to know you're enjoying so much your new amplifier! Actually, the heart of the Kama Bay 2000 amplifier is the same of the SDA1000/1100 I reviewed, so I guess it sounds mostly the same. Scythe promised new, more powerful amplifiers but, as far as I know, nothing has been released since then. Many new, inexpensive amplifiers are hitting the market (see for example this week's review of the unbelievable Auna AV2 CD508) ...it has never been so easy to build a very good sounding system for peanuts!
Happy listening!
Lucio Cadeddu

Rega reviews
Hi Lucio,
Just wondering if you are going to review the Rega Apollo-r cd player. I am considering it but would love to see you guys review it. I am wondering if it would be an upgrade to the Consonance cd-120 linear or Marantz cd-63se sonically. Some people rave about it and some don't.
Have a good weekend.
Warm regards,
Steve - E-mail: stephenn (at) alphalink.com.au

LC
Dear Steve,
at the moment we haven't scheduled a review of the Rega Apollo CD player. My opinion is that it will be a solid upgrade with respect to the Marantz CD63SE CD player (even the old Rega Planet sounded better than that Marantz, indeed!) while it could be a side-grade when compared to the Consonance CD120 Linear. At the end of it all, it will be the rest of the audio chain and your personal taste to determine a clear winner.
Happy listening!
Lucio Cadeddu

Chinese preamp w Musical Fidelity caps
Hi Andy!
I read your review of one of those Chinese PGA2311 based preamps. I recently bought one myself. Altough I haven't yet noticed any weakness in the sound quality, I'm curious to see whether I could increase the sq with a mod like yours. I'm quite new to DIY audio electronics so I actually need to get the physics behind added caps explained to me, but maybe you could at least reveal what specs cap you used, and where in the circuitry to put it?
Best regards
Johan - E-mail: johanarvidwahlberg (at) gmail.com

AN
Hi Johan
Glad you're enjoying the preamp - I thought it was pretty good too. What I'd suggested wasn't a modification to the unit itself - my skills aren't up to that - but the addition of a valve (tube) buffer to the signal chain before the preamp. A buffer is a simple unit usually containing one valve that, to the limited extent I understand it, alters the impedance faced by the source and which can cause it to perform better than simply connecting directly to an amplifier.
I found a slight improvement adding either an "Analogue King" tube buffer (a simple, cheap - but badly built and unreliable if my example was typical - buffer) or a tube headphone amp (e.g. interconnect from source to the headphone amp input and headphone output fed to the input of the preamp - you need a "Y" adapter from the headphone out to do this). Getting a valve into the circuit can warm the sound up a bit and the impedance matching may also help. If you're happy with the sound though I wouldn't fiddle with it.
Hope that makes sense,
Andy Norman

Dayton APA 150
Hi Arvind,
I just read your review of the Dayton apa150 power amp. I live in Columbus, OH and found this product while searching online for a 2-channel amp. I just moved into a new home that the previous owner had pre-wired with speakers throughout the house. In the basement, where all the speaker wires come together, I have 6 pairs of speaker ports in the wall. 4 ports are for the surround sound in the basement (2 fronts and 2 rears), and the other 2 ports are for the other 3 pairs of speakers that are in the family room, dining room, and outside the house. Each of the 3 rooms outside of the basement have their own impedence matched volume controls.
These 3 pairs of speakers are actually wired together in the 2 extra ports in the basement, and when I called Parts-Express they said my best bet would be to buy the apa150 since I only have 2-channels in the basement for the 3 pairs of speakers in the family room, dining room and outside. Being an amateur at whole home audio, I was hoping you could help me understand if the Dayton apa150 would have enough power to supply these three rooms outside of the basement.
In your opinion, do you feel that buying one of these apa150 units will be enough to power the three rooms? I'm not looking to rock down my house by any means. I would like to be able to have decent volume in these rooms while throwing a dinner party for music, or potentially enough volume so that you can hear audio from the tv while watching a football game inside the house and outside if you about 100ft away during a party.
I would appreciate your thoughts on the apa150's ability to handle the job. I don't have a ton of money to spend on home audio equipment, so if this would work I'll jump all over it for $119!
Thanks again for any help you can provide,
Mark - E-mail: markgulgas (at) gmail.com

AK
Hello Mark, I too live in Columbus, nice to hear from a fellow Ohioan. I am a bit unclear on the connections you have in the basement, specifically how 2 pairs of connectors a hooked up to 3 pairs of speakers. Regardless, I have never heard of one amp driving 3 pairs of speakers and whether or not it technically can would depend on the specs of the speakers and they load they would present as well as the capability of the amp.
Conceptually, I am not a fan of piping music through the house for a variety of reasons. I would suggest you think about what you are trying to achieve and maybe we can think of room specific solutions.
Hope this helped somehow,
Arvind Kohli

Pragmatic power amp
I'm eager to hear your opinion on the Pragmatic in the Part II.
I have been using Trend Audio TA10.1 since after reading your review and I'm very happy about it.
Recently I added a 2nd hand pre-amp (Adcom GFP-565 for US$300) and the bass seems to have improved.
Hope that a further upgrade would give me a more presence into the music.
John - E-mail: johnchoy (at) gmail.com

LC
Dear John,
if you already own the TA 10.1 and you're satisfied with its modest power output, the Pragmatic wouldn't be a significative step forward. May I suggest you to search for a NuForce IA7 integrated amp instead? This way you can get rid of the Adcom preamp, extra interconnects etc, the signal would be way shorter and the sound...better. Or, if you use just digital sources (with digital outputs) I might suggest to have a look at the newest fully digital integrated amplifier from NuForce, the DDA-100 we reviewed a couple of weeks ago. Don't forget simpler is better!
Hope this helped somehow,
Lucio Cadeddu