My order for the new Integrated, "Rachel" is seventh on the Q. I note that today according to the Official Decware Amplifier Waiting List the first one in Q is in "testing" status right now. The second one in Q is "on the bench" and I don't mean that in a sports play context. They are assembling it with loving care.

I am now 9 weeks out. I even forgot which base I chose. Luckily the Q lists the base that is ordered. I had ordered the black figured; this is the nicest one for me. I have my pair of Mullard reissue EL34's ready to go into this thing. I just have to keep waiting.

How are those Mullard's RR? Been thinking of getting a quad for Torii.

Thanks Lon. Good to know. Liking the EH 6CA7's in the Torii whether or not they engage the Hazen mod(haven't heard back from Steve yet) and liked the JJ 6CA7's as well but have heard pretty good things on the "Mullards" so maybe will give them a try. At least I know they're real pentode.

I'm back and forth between the EH and JJ's. Nothing wrong with the JJ's at all. A really great tube. Hard to say at this point what I like better. And then the "Mullards" will be here shortly to play with.

I'll be interested in your take, and any difference that you hear with the EH's in Torii's 2 & 3.

Well, Ron sent me cryo'd JJs by mistake, so I'm a few days away again from trying the EHs.

How long does it take to wind transformers! Mine is being wound with several others.  It seems that some of the new SE34I.3 units have already hit the street.

Mine is in route as I write this. I ordered it with Vcaps so it will be a while before I can say how it really sounds.

Mine shows as "PARTS PULLED" which means that it is being assembled.

However, I am going to receive a TORII MK III this week. This amp might elbow the others out of the way.

Now my SE34I.3 is "On The Bench."

My TORII MK III is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow.

I am afraid somebody would ask me that.

A few days ago I received the TORII MK III back from DECWARE all checked out and cleared for duty, with a new black figured base installed.

This amp had never been broken in. I set up the amp with JJ 6922 input tubes, Russian Winged "C" rectifiers and no-name Chinese EL34 power tubes, with the 0A3 and 0C2 voltage regulators.

The first two hours the amp did not sound impressive.  However, as it played, during hour 3-5 the sound began to set in and grow more spacious and clear. Five hours on; five hours off is the plan. I have been adhering to that.

Because my listening space is a small room, the sound waves from this thing go right through me. I find that the bass sounds best with the bass pots turned all the way down. However, the treble pots are set at about half. I cannot discern any real palpable difference between the two bias settings.  I set the speaker impedance switch pointed back, which sounds best with the MG 944's.

The main thing I have to say about this amp is that it amplifies on the characteristics that the other DECWARE amps have. It brings extra  impact and emotion to the music that the other amps bring in a slightly less quantity.

I don't know if the MK III is too big and powerful for this room; it may well be. I am not ready to divest of any of the other amps yet. I am waiting for my SE34I.3; the new Sheriff in town.

Is it possible to have too much DECWARE? Probably not.    

RR,

This reminds me of my first experience with the Torii. And it sounds like your settings (bass full left for tightness, and impedance back for more push and therefore more articulation) are adaptations to the green Torii and probably  your room, as you suggest. With my 944s in this room, like Lon, I liked the forward setting for impedance, and back for bias... the most easy settings. But with my HR-Ones, I tend to prefer the back impedance setting, especially since I put NOS Russian K40Y-9 PIO coupling caps in the Torii.

When the Torii first came, right off, I missed the SE34I.2+ with its effortless, open and lucid mids, and found the weight and density of the Torii a little intimidating. But as Lon suggests (I think especially in some settings) Torii burnin can be a big factor. Not hearing a notable difference with the bias switch is a good indicator of subtitles to come as the amp opens up. After that first bloom, I suspect you are looking at a couple hundred hours to get into the "seasoning" phase that seems to continue for a long time.

For me, with room adjustments (to accommodate the power and weight), tube exploration, and so on, I feel like I have the magic of SE with the power and weight not likely attainable with SE. This for me is the amazing thing about the Torii. It can have a more dense, balanced, classic sound, or a very lucid and open sound and anywhere in between...but with the fast, smooth power...very nice.

I look forward to your developing impressions.

Go into the Contact tab on the Decware website. The PDF build sheet link is in there.

Thanks guys:)

ThorSevan has reported his arrived in the "Help me validate Decware amp and speakers" thread in the General Discussion forum.

Mine has passed QC....looking forward to hearing your impressions Riv.

Congrats!

It behaves a lot like the little ZEN amp with gain and overall presentation. It has the same insane imaging. The power tube gauges are a delight. The needle starts to move after the unit warms up. I am glad that I bought my matched pair of Mullard reissue EL34's from Jim McShane because they show identical readings on the little meters. When you turn the volume nearly all the way up the needles on the meter start going a little crazy. The gauge tells you when the amp is clipping.

The amp has a "clean" look to it. The elegant black figured base I figure looks best with this.

The tube set is a pair of 6N1P-EV, the Mullards and a 1950's Sylvania 5U4G rectifier. I listened to only CD's.

I could not test the amp's limits because my daughter had oral surgery yesterday and had to stay quiet. From what I was able to play I could discern that the amp had the gain and imaging qualities of the little ZEN but the sound was a tad warmer. This is pretty much what Steve had forecast.

I am sorry if I am not "gushing" here (like somebody who replaced a cheap rack system with their first DECWARE amp). This is the ninth DECWARE amp I have owned. I take for granted the high level of performance this gear presents.

RACHEL is loud enough in my small room without using a preamp, connected to the vaunted MG944 (Zen Zeigler) speakers. This RACHEL dame needs to be controlled, I think; and what better to do that with than a CSP2+ preamplifier. I will move that into position and see how it does. It should add more weight and control.

Without a preamp and the gain past 3/4 RACHEL begins clipping, a lot like the little ZEN. The sound sounds more weighty right before that point. The CSP2+ would allow me to ride the gain and better accommodate the sound of different recordings.

My listening session using the TORII MK III night before last was marred by the JJ 6922 inputs, which I suspect were distorting. I moved the treble controls before realizing that the trouble was the  JJs. I have to put some 6N1P-EV's in those slots.

Great info Riv, and I think we all appreciate your level head impressions of the amp thus far. Mine has shipped! I live overseas now so it may took a bit, and my speakers are not shipped yet either.

So, as you can see I have some breakin' in to do as well with new Omegas (Hoyt B 1.5) and VCAPs in Rachel.

I'm interested to play with the meters myself. I used to have an Amplitrex AT1000 capable of tight matching. I think I ordered these EL34s from Upscale or McShane will have to check.

I don't have a 5U4 though, just a Dario GZ32. I am in the process of ordering one 5U4 unless someone has a spare that they would sell me (shipped to forwarding address in New York).

 Well I am the newest person on the waiting list for the Rachael. Steve was nice enough to spend 30mins discussing my situation and what to expect  w/ the Rachael based on my set up, 11'X13' room w/ Paradigm studio 80v2 w/ specs of 92db, 8ohm fed by a Csp2.  Currently my amp is a SS 175 watts per chan.
 I received a nice education on, I guess listening habits in terms of  volume level.  Basically the volume with which one feels is where the sound quality reaches its peak in terms of fullness/tonality etc is different btwn his amps and high power SS amps.  I told him I like to listen at slightly higher than avg levels as then the music opens up.  He said that is due to many SS amps sounding anemic until the volume is pretty loud, i.e. if 2 people sat on a couch, and the music was sounding right, we'd have to raise our voices quite a bit to converse.  
 W/ the Rachael,  the music will sound full and perfect at a much lower level, so i'll not even notice that it's not as loud as I normally would like it to be. And, I won't miss the extra volume the SS amp has, at least with serious listening.
 So even tho Rachael is not gonna get near concert levels w/ my speakers, it won't need to.  Plus, this doesn't even take into consideration the improvements in musicality and transparency I should w/ the tune amp.
 Never the less tho,  he did say he will be expecting a call from me in a year or so inquiring about buying a set of his (more) efficient speakers.  At which point, I'll really know the definition of kick ass sound.

I can't wait.  I did ask about the Jupiter caps and he said he highly recommended them, and let me have them at the same price as the V-caps.   Said more transparent and organic than the standard caps they use, and he prefers them to the V's.  Will sound great w/ my Csp2 pre.  I don't need the volume control option on the amp because my csp2 has the 2 gain dials which essentially would serve the same purpose.

I know this info won't be surprising for you veteran Decware users, but for new csr's like me with little to no experience w/ the Decware amp sound, maybe this will answer some questions.



Greg

Thanks Lon, your posts have been very informative for me over the months, along w/ everyone else in this great community and I really have no doubts about this purchase now.  It's been great education reading the old posts prior to making what I think is now an informed option.   Man i'm excited.
 The csp2 I bought used here in Oct and this Rachael are my first stereo upgrades in maybe 10yrs.  No more mid fi for me!
 Also, as far as the loudness bit goes, I'll still be keeping my SS around for War movies and parties so no worries there

Thanks to all,
Greg

 That's really cool Palomino.  I've never heard anything from my rig like that,  everything is definately btwn the speakers, and mostly 2 dimensional. Don't get me wrong, it sounds great, especially when I added the csp2, but still.....
 Anyways, thanks for the input, and please keep it coming as the amp breaks in. I'd like to hear all about it.

Greg

At least the cables and pc's etc aren't a waste since you can always use them on your other gear.  I'm planning to invest in some Decware cords soon.  Not sure what to start w/,  spkr cbl, interconn's or PC's.   Prob not the spkr cbl as those are the highest price.  I like to wade into the water.

Greg12,

I believe the best place to start is the speaker cables. Yes they may be the most expensive of the cable, but there is a reason for that. They make the  most improvment, first off, secondly, without the good speaker cables, I don't think  you will hear what the other cables bring to the table.

Funny story about the speakers cables...

I get a box from Decware, things I had ordered, or needed for a speaker build. In the bottom of the box, there was a bunch of short lengths of speaker cable. Steve knowing I wasn't a firm believer in high priced speaker cabling at the time, I'm thinking, what am I supposed to do with these.

I called Steve that afternoon, and asked him, what am I to do with all these wires. Me thinking he was joking, he told me to strip the ends, butt them together and solder then up and try them out. He said they would sound better than anything I had tried or was using at the time.  He was correct, enough said. That is what I'm using to this date.

Zygi

I was the ultimate unbeliever about cables. The math and science just didn't add up. Guess what? Math and science hasn't listened to my stereo with good cables and interconnects. Big noticeable differences.

Ah you inspired me to put on the Impulse SACD of CB and the KC 7.

The wait for a Decware component. . . well it can be tough. Kudos on coming up with a diversionary tactic!