Kondo is a small company. Their level of dedication is beyound anything I have seen in this industry.
BTW - a nice pair of Gaku-Ons on the coffee table. I should have one at home next week.
I had of Audionote
pre M10 and M7KSL
phono GE1
amp Gakuon 2 Ongaku Neiro Neiro Silver Kageki Baransu 2 Souga
I know very well M77, Kassai silver,Kegon and Gakuho that has one my friend living 5 minutes from my home
the worse is Gakuon because his sound is little dark and too heavy in mid bass,and absolutely the best is the new Souga,very natural,dynamic with good bass and magic mid high
Other very good is Kageki,with 2A3 and silver transformer,but 5/6 watt maximo and half dynamic of Souga.
Also Baransu is fantastic,with 300B and silver transformer.
Ongaku has good power,22 watt better than Gakuon,having the same tube 211,better because more transparent,natural and with good mid bass/bass,less heavy in the mid bass ,so more neutral and natural
Less transparent than Souga,same dynamic, but with more power and you listen the sound came out more easy from speaker.
One day,i and my friend tried all day and evening M10 with Neiro Silver,Kageki,Kegon,Kassai,Ongaku,Gakuon and the prototype Gakuon mono with Versa Dynamic turntable,IOM
and speaker monovia Yamamura Dionisio
The best was Kageki,then Kegon and Ongaku
Other my friend had M 1000 with GakuonII and Souga.
Also in this case my friend prefer much more Souga than Gakuon II
One day we tried the old Ongaku against the new Ongaku KSL
The KSL version was better,more transparent and natural
Other trial was old M7 silver against M7 KSL.The KSL version much better in everything
We tried M77,no bad but little dark
A lot of people want to buy the old series because was made from mr. Kondo,but new KSL series is much better,for my and my friends taste.
Regards
Tango, have you any experience so far with the new Kondo G1000 preamp and Kagura power amps?
Dear Rudolph,
You must have mistaken me for Gian..hehe
I have listened to Kagura +G1000 with Living Voice. They sounded terrific. But never in my own system. I use a custom SET monos from Ayon with Cessaro horn. Also sound at least as good as the Kagura + G1000 though.
Kind regards,
Tang
Kondo is a small company. Their level of dedication is beyond anything I have seen in this industry.
BTW - a nice pair of Gaku-Ons on the coffee table. I should have one at home next week.
It is very difficoult to compare the 300B based stuff and parallel 211 like the GakuOn (or Kagura), simply 'cos they are designed to drive a very different types of speakers. On high efficiency speakers, designs based on 2A3 or 300B are likely to sound better ... If you can live with the limitations of high efficiency speakers.
The GakuOn is much more powerful than any of the 300B based designs. It has typically 52-54WPC and can drive real world speakers. The guy who ownes those is a big Kondo fan, who also has the M-1000 mk 1, Ongaku (in another system) and have tried all the amps you mentioned plus Kegon, Gaku-Oh and the latest Kagura - and ended up prefering the GakuOns to all other Kondo amps in his system.
The pair he has is very special and I doubt many people had a chance to listen to it. It is called Gaku-On Shinden and there have been only 10 pairs made to commemorate Kondo-san death (Shinden means 'Temple' in japanese). The real unicorn. The Shinden is the last Kondo-san design, which includes refinements over the regular GakuOn, including different silver output transformers. The amp is even more powerful than the basic Gaku-On (if the word 'basic' can be even used describe $200.000 Kondo amp) and has 62-63WPC - more than any Kondo amp ever had (the new Kagura has 45WPC).
Gaku-On Shinden sound snappier and has better microdynamics than the more mellow sounding Kagura.
This is the pic of a regular Gaku-On II (but the Shinden looks the same):
View attachment 33412
I should have them for a couple of weeks. I wonder how they will work with M3s. The Kaguras had no problem with S5, so these should work too. At least I hope so!
No idea, as I don't have them at home just yet. I will let you know.
Any update Adam?
I am intrigued....
Hello, is it possible for you to share your experiences with the Kondo Kagura amps with us? Have you used other Kondo poweramps before and if so, how did they compare to the Kagura's? Thanks.
I have used an Kondo Ongaku and an Audio Note UK Ongaku before as well as Kondo M77 preamp and Audio Note UK M9 preamp. The systems were quite different so direct comparisons are difficult. I'm sure most people are familiar with the Kondo house sound compare to the Audio Note UK so I won't go into that. The Kagura can be described as a bit of a beast, a little bit more of the Kondo pizazz with the ability to drive quite a few more speakers than the Ongaku I think. My Ongaku was used with Stradivaris and Marten Coltrane 2s and struggled a little bit when things got tough although I habitually do not turn the volume up that high anyway. With the Kaguras I never go above 11am on the M1000 dial. That's in a room almost 40 feet long, 16 feet wide with 12 foot ceilings. It retains that dynamic quality the Kondo is known for, much more so that Audio Note UK hence my venture back to Kondo. I have played with the Gakuons as well and the Kaguras seem (it was a different system) to have much more power than the standard Gakuons but I found the Ongaku sweeter than the Gakuons. The Kaguras, imho, seem to have retained the Onagku's sweetness but added a turbo charger to allow it be paired with more speakers. The Aidas are a good fit to the Kaguras as well. They are a keeper. Now I need to look at the G-1000...
Yes, you should definately have a look into the g1000. I have listened insensively to the G1000, it is a marvelous linestage and it brings the best out of the Kagura's. A person I know in Paris replaced his m1000 mk ii by a G1000 and the latter was in his view much better than the m1000 mk ii and a match in heaven with the Kagura's. In all honesty, I was never boiled over by the m1000 mk ii and clearly prefer the m1000 mk i.
You are referring to the 'sweetness' of the Ongaku (did you play with an older Kondo San Ongaku or with a later non Kondo San version?) and of the Kagura's: are the latter also as pure and unmechanical sounding as the former in your view? I played with the (non Shinden) 211 Gakuons in the past but these amps could in my opinion not compete in my Genesis 1.1 set up with the 300b Gakuohs.
Are you using the stock Kondo tubes in your Kagura's? If you are using nos valves, may I ask which ones? Do you for example have any experience with CV181 tubes in stead of the 6sn7 valves in the Kagura's?
And did you experiment with pc's? I know the Kagura's need two pc's per amp and probably the pc for the heater is the most important of the two.
A lot of questions, I know, but there are not many WBF members with 'Kagura experience'.
My Ongaku was post Kondo-San. The Kondo-San era ones command a significant cost penalty. I think there is something romantic about the kondo-san era ones but not sure if I'm convinced they are all worth the penalty as Masaki-San had a pretty heavy input even early on.
Yes I am using stock tubes for now. Rolling 211s can get pretty expensive. I would love to try it later on though. Any recommendations? RCA? GE?
I use Crystal Cable PCs mainly because they are what i already have and I detest fire hose sized PCs. They are a real pain to manipulate behind an amp and with two for each mono block one can go crazy! It's interesting that you think the heater is the more important. Has anyone tried rolling PCs between the two IED connectors?
Right now I cam happy to just sit back and listen.
Steve Williams Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator | Ron Resnick Site Co-Owner | Administrator | Julian (The Fixer) Website Build | Marketing Managersing |