Post by Steve Deckert on 11/09/18 at 17:38:29
PART 1
Anniversary Mods - what are they?
You will be hearing about or have already heard that there are Anniversary Mods available for certain things, but other than a discussion in the forum, no information is on the site yet.
These mods are no longer in development. As time allows we will be adding the options to the shopping cart so they can be purchased on new tube gear. Mods are now available for existing amplifiers.
The reason these mods came to pass is simply that the performance of the new 25th Anniversary Zen Triode amplifier has shadowed virtually everything we make. It’s actually really that good. So good, in fact, that after hearing it for any length of time, everything else sounds mediocre.
Think about that, …mediocre. Decware gear sounding mediocre? Our Zen Mystery Amp (ZMA) as reviewed by Tone Audio magazine was said to sound better than Wavac and Shindo, both considered part of the holy grail of tube gear. Think about that too…. an amazing accomplishment, yet as good as Wavac amplifiers sound, or Shindo amplifiers sound, or the even better ZMA amplifier sounds, all sound “mediocre” by comparison to our anniversary amp.
To bring things closer together sonically, the technologies used in the anniversary amp are now available on most everything else as an option.
So far we have shipped around 40 of the new 25th Anniversary Zen Triode amplifiers, and many have found themselves a home amongst lots of great Decware gear… which brings up an interesting situation;
Today an owner of the 25th Anniversary Zen Triode amplifier called me and wanted to upgrade his speakers to get more detail, imaging and scale… He was running the new anniversary amplifier paired with a ZP3 phono stage, a ZSTAGE and a ZROCK2. These items are not in the same league as the new amplifier in their stock form and since the weakest link in the chain always determines the sound quality, these items would have to be modified to keep up.
Anniversary mods to be clear, are mods that use the same technology developed in 25th Anniversary Zen Triode amp. Specifically they were 1) VOLTAGE REGULATION TUBES Getting the entire circuit including output stage driven off our series wired Voltage Regulator tubes, and 2) POWER SUPPLY BYPASS CAPS Speeding up the power supply and matching it’s signature to that of the signal-path coupling caps.
There are only a few products that can be updated with both. Most can only use #2 .
1) VOLTAGE REGULATION TUBES -- The Voltage Regulator tube mod improves the quality of the high-voltage DC power feeding the tubes resulting in even less grain. It is similar to having a power re-generator (that cost more than the amplifier itself) but better. You can hear what this might sound like by listening to your stereo at 2:30 A.M. The 25th Anniversary Zen Triode amp, the ZP3 phono stage and the SE84UFO3’s are the only products that get the entire circuit driven off the voltage regulator tubes. We have also found a way to do it on the CSP3 and the ZROCK2 and will be making it available on 2019 models of the ZBOX and ZSTAGE.
2) POWER SUPPLY BYPASS CAPS -- This mod entails bypassing all the electrolytic filter caps in the power supply with the correct values of film or foil capacitors designed to match the signature of the coupling capacitors in the signal path. In most cases, these are cryo-treated beeswax caps from Jupiter because that is what our amplifiers use in the signal path. In older amplifiers that used polyurethane caps, we use the same type for the bypass.
SO, to get the guy with an Anniversary amp who drives it with non-anniversary gear up to par, we have to speed up all the non-anniversary gear in the signal path which means doing #2 to those components.
PART II
Anniversary Mods are about speed and resolution of which Decware amps already have quite a bit.
Decware amps are all built right to the point of diminishing returns' bone stock. If you are looking at your first Decware amplifier or Preamp and are on a budget we recommend sticking with the standard configurations. Since most of our products come standard with cryo-treated beeswax caps, it means that doing the power-supply bypass cap mod is going to be expensive, since we will use the same fancy caps. The difference you would hear is similar to what you would hear by making a substantial upgrade in interconnects and speaker wire. I bring that up because you might have someone buying say an SE84UFO 2 watt amplifier, and he is using mediocre interconnects, or speaker cables, or perhaps even a mediocre source. Clearly if the mod on his amplifier costs $420. he might be lucky to hear any improvement at all whereas if he updated his cables, the amplifier could literally sound almost twice as good.
Glass Resistors
Due to the rarity of these, we just have certain values on hand and can therefor only offer them on certain products. Over time, we may be able to find more and offer them on additional products.
Here is the list of Anniversary Mods now available for both existing and new tube gear (but not yet in the shopping carts).
UPDATE 12/11/2018. TORII MK2,MK3,MK4 beeswax cap mod increased to $600 from $400 because it takes 4 additional beeswax caps that we previously overlooked.
Thanks,
Steve
