Here is some more interesting Decware History that goes way way back...  yes, in an incredible irony, the actual amplifier that started Decware was solid state.  Here's the story...

Back in high-school when I graduated from listening to a monaural console tubed record player with 10 of my Dads records to my very own stereo I got extremely lucky.  Surrounded by vintage 70's audio gear (because it was the 70's) like Pioneer, Sansui, JVC, Kenwood, Yamaha, Harmon Kardon and so on, I was drawn to the Harmon Kardon, and only the better dual mono unit they made at the time.  It had the best sound, everything else sounded smeared.  

Of course I couldn't afford a Harmon Kardon receiver, but I enjoyed going into the stereo stores around town of which there were at least a dozen, and listening to everything I could possibly hear.  

One day I found myself in a small stereo shop in the mall explaining to the salesman how all this stuff sounded like crap compared to the HK I heard and I just wished all this other stuff that I could afford sounded better.  Little did I know I was talking to a local guru of repairing stereo gear and band equipment.  He looked at me somewhat puzzled and said he completely agreed and knew of a used receiver in his shop that had the tuner section ripped out of it, but could still be used as an integrated amplifier.  He said it sounded considerably better than the Harmon Kardon albeit had a lot less power.  He only wanted $20.00 for it (1976) which I could easily afford so I told him to bring it with him to work and we could compare it to all the receivers in the store on the switcher.  The most expensive unit in the room at the time was $1479.00 if I remember right.

A few days later we found ourselves back in the stereo shop with this pitiful looking piece of junk that didn't even have a case around it.  I didn't care.  I wanted to hear it.  We ran it through the paces, and I could tell on the first couple notes it actually was better than the HK I held in such high regard.  After doing an A/B comparison with every receiver in the room (about 50) it just spanked everything.  I ran home with it and hooked it up and played it every day with great passion for 15 years at which no time did I hear anything better or even close.  It actually took me that long to blow it up!  Of course I had it repaired it each time I blew it up, which was twice that I can recall.  It was my reference until I built the Zen Triode 2 watt amplifier which sounded exactly like it only better.  I eventually tossed it in the trash sometime in the early 90's.

As far as solid state goes, I have only head a couple of things that sounded close.  Some of Nelson Pass's first watt amps and Dan K's ZKIT60 which we sell on the web site for this very reason.

The model I had was the 3770, the second one on the page.  The power was 12 watts not 80 watts!!!  





Had it not been for having this sound stuck in my head for all time, I would have never been able to voice the Zen Triode amplifier the way I did. In fact without voicing the Zen Triode amplifier to sound like this, there would have been no Zen Triode amplifier, or even Decware.  It's guaranteed because without this sound stuck in my head there would have been no drive to voice anything to sound this good!

So that's the back story....

Tonight I am hearing a bone stock, unmolested working unit exactly like the one I had, only this time I am hearing it on speakers, wire and sources that far exceed what I had at the time.  The sound that is coming out of this thing, and the imaging... it's just like a Zen Triode amp, so much so it's just freaking me out a bit...  It's been easily twenty some years since I've listened to it.  When I got this one from eBay years ago, it had a channel out, so I listened to only one channel at that time.  Today I just decided to fix it so I would have something for my new wood shop.  In my wood shop I have a vintage pair of Sansui speakers from the same era that I will enjoy paired with it.

Another Audio Gods thing to have me fix this receiver completely spontaneously after thinking about doing it for years...  especially today. Of course I didn't have time to mess with it today of all days which is what makes it so interesting.. because it should have taken me days to fix and why would you start a project that you know will likely last for days when you don't even have time to take a shit!!!  It's cases like this I just trust it, and roll with it.  So I did, despite the insanity of it and instead of taking days it took about 28 minutes...  had I known it would be that easy I would have fixed it the day it arrived. Proof that your brain is your worse enemy.

Also proof that solid state can sound good as good as tubes in certain situations.  I believe it could be that way all the time if the engineers who design it would quit worrying about efficiency, slew rates, damping and distortion specs and just voice the damn things to sound good.  Just last night I watched an interview of a well respected engineer who designed some of audios most expensive solid state high power amplifiers who actually admitted he never listened to any of it during the design process.  

This type of engineering explains why so many tube amplifiers sound mediocre or worse... and I'll be honest... you almost actually have to try to make a tube sound bad to get it to happen!

Anyway, as I have sat here many a night listening while I write, this wonderful amplifier feels like one of the family and is really a joy to listen to! It's such a mind melter to hear it again.  Last time I heard it was on a pair of Bose speakers with Monster Cable and a Pioneer PL518 turntable... Now with real speakers, ZSTYX, and all the Decware dressings I am STUNNED at how good this amplifier sounds for 12/15 watts.

As the night goes on and the caps start to wake up, the imaging is just SICK... it's as good as you could hope for from any amplifier and of course has the potential to get better.  This was back when EICO was transitioning from tubes to solid state and basically just started replacing the tubes with transistors.  Same capacitor coupled input and output as the tube circuit that preceded it.  I have to say the RCA 40310 output transistors are pretty magical sounding in a major way at least in this circuit.

This particular model was and is really rare as you will find out if you try to find one.  Boy... is this ever going to get the UFO25's panties in a knot!!!  That will be fun.  This weekend I'll put her back in and let her teach this EICO a few things.  You know that will be a glorious experience!

God I love this hobby!  Apparently it loves me too!

Happy new year!

Steve

I know right!  The Lafayette catalog... we were so blessed to live when we did and do... what a perspective.  What pride building stuff like this do our kids have... there isn't even any kits for smartphones and even if there were you can't use a smartphone without paying a monthly ransom.  Can you imagine how absurd it would have sounded when the salesman sold you the receiver in 1977 and said by the way you will get a monthly bill from the radio station for everything you listen you and it will know because it's tracking your every move!

Boy the 70's really exploded with the advent of solid state and a couple years to iron out the kinks... the stereo gear was wonderful to look at and there were no such thing as $1000 power cords.  Funny how the sound got worse over the years (smaller speakers, high speed duped cassettes, digital, etc.) despite the miraculous advancements in cable technology ; ).  

If you go back to the 1950's and 60's when the microphones were tube, the entire audio path was tube, and the playback and monitoring systems were tube with speakers that were huge by today's standards... the sound was spectacular.  Nothing like what you hear today or even 20 years ago.   You can clearly hear this difference in reel-to-reel master tapes from the different eras.  The audio industry has pretended that the sound has improved with each year and better technology, but most of it actually got worse and now enough time has passed that many are losing their reference so they will simply believe it.   

Steve

Very interesting Steve. I had an EICO tubed integrated from 1959 before I had my Zen amp #27 (Eric has it now) and though it began developing issues near the end, it was a very nice sounding machine that it took a Zen to top in my system. And though something else, I grew up with my Dad's Dynaco system of a similar vintage (a parishioner gave it to him in '62, he was an electrical engineer and modified it) consisting of a tuner, preamp and amp with an AR turntable and EV speakers. The tube sound of that period was the reference built into me and what led me back to tubes in the early 'nineties and to Decware.