My Little Barn

[dcc]

After 8 days in my system, I had to let demo MA-5000 go. Phasemation confirmed that my pair will ship around mid May. Hopefully, they will sit in my system by the end of May.

In the meantime, I have their little brothers, the MA-2000 on loan. They drive the Stenheim Reference Ultime Two effortlessly.

 

[aangen]

@aangen any updates on the arrival of your MSL Diamond?

Oh yes sir. I was comfortably numb with my Signature Platinum. What could be better than this I thought. My oh My the Diamond is a giant leap upwards! I am stunned by it. I have played maybe 20 sides with it. Right out of the box it was stunning. It keeps getting better. I may buy a second in case this one breaks. My oh My!

 

[sbo6]

After 8 days in my system, I had to let demo MA-5000 go. Phasemation confirmed that my pair will ship around mid May. Hopefully, they will sit in my system by the end of May.

In the meantime, I have their little brothers, the MA-2000 on loan. They drive the Stenheim Reference Ultime Two effortlessly.

View attachment 149411

Curious how the bass is managing those 12" x 2 woofers?

 

[dcc]

The best bass I have ever had. The MA-5000 trump all the previous big power amps I have had: the Krell Evolution One, The Tenor Audio 175S and the Thrax Phoenix. I also tested the darTZeel NHB 468 and the Thrax Spartacus. The MA-5000 are the most musical of them all.

Even the MA-2000 are amazing. I am currently listening to Donald Fagen's The Nightly at on tape at an SPL of 70-75 dB and it sounds great.

The Stenheim are 95dB efficient. When I had the Krell Evolution One, the VU meter needles were barely moving. With the Thax Phoenix, they were usually showing 2 to 5 watts.

 

[jbrrp1]

What a wonderful system evolution! It's great to demo in your setting with your speakers to dial it all in where you like it best. Love those Stenheims!

 

[Rotatoubib]

After 8 days in my system, I had to let demo MA-5000 go. Phasemation confirmed that my pair will ship around mid May. Hopefully, they will sit in my system by the end of May.

In the meantime, I have their little brothers, the MA-2000 on loan. They drive the Stenheim Reference Ultime Two effortlessly.

View attachment 149411

Unfortunetely, the 2000 have no XLR input, do you confirm?

 

[dcc]

Indeed, no XLR input on the MA-2000.

 

[dcc]

The Phasemation MA-5000 power amps that I ordered last month were delivered early this week by François from Ana Mighty Sound.

The MA-5000 are build to order and according to the distributor these might be one of the first pairs being delivered in Europe. It took Phasemation one month to build the MA-5000. They were shipped to Paris and then hand delivered and set up by François.

At my request, Phasemation replaced the standard PSVANE WE-300 by a pair of Takatsuki 300B tubes.



I already sourced two pairs of NOS GE 211 VT4C. We used identical tubes during the home trial of the demo pair. They replaced the PSVANE WE-211L that are supplied as standard by Phasemation. I also had a pair of NOS Telefunken ECC83 Smooth Plate to replace the JJ ECC803.







The 6 rectifier tubes (3 per channel) are NOS JAN 5R4GA. I did not care swapping them.

The build quality is second to none. Only top quality parts are being used. The tube cover is a piece of art by itself and Phasemation highly recommends using it. Adjusting the bias is straightforward. We checked the bias several times during the day to ensure that we had reached the optimal settings.

After more than one month with the Phasemation MA-2000 in my system, I was eager to get back the sound of the MA-5000 that I experienced during the week when I had the demo pair at home.

Switching from the MA-2000 to the MA-5000 was a significant change. Whereas the MA-2000 are excellent amps in their price range, the MA-5000 are just out of this world.

Similarly to their little brothers, the MA-5000 are dead silent. With a reduced noise floor, the MA-5000 are the most revealing power amps I have ever had in my system.

Sound-wise, I can only confirm what I wrote after auditioning the demo pair during a full week in my system back in April. The sound of the MA-5000 is fabulously immersive. They drive my loudspeakers with ease and authority. The soundstage is wide and deep. The timbers are spot on. Bass are impressive.



I am very glad that I moved away from rather inefficient and power hungry loudspeakers. The Stenheim Reference Ultime Two loudspeakers have allowed me to explore other routes that are far more rewarding.

 

[dcc]

Finally, I brought the MA-2000 upstairs in my secondary system. A while ago, I already tested the CSport GM70A and its matching preamplifier and I was highly impressed.


The combo MA-2000 with my Krell preamp is actually even more convincing. I decided to acquire the demo pair. François stills needed them for a few days and will bring them back soon.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Did you ever consider the AN or Mayer/Elrog 242 Moly plates?

 

[dcc]

No. I only do business with two brick and mortar dealers who will go the extra mile for me but they don't carry these brands.

 

[spiritofmusic]

No. I only do business with two brick and mortar dealers who will go the extra mile for me but they don't carry these brands.

Fair enough. I've been running GE 211s for over a decade now, considering new production from AN and Mayer, and always looking for data points.

 

[dcc]

A few days ago, I received the latest tape from Analog Tone Factory, Jérôme Sabbagh's record label: Chris Cheek's Keeper of the Eastern Door with Bill Frisell, Tony Scherr and Rudy Royston.

Jérôme Sabbagh brought my copy to the Munich High End Show. He gave it to François from Ana Mighty Sound who dropped it at my house.

Bernie Grundman took care of the mastering. The music and the sound are fabulous.



I just love the glow of the tubes...

 

[Verdier]

What a surprising development!

I've often read your posts in your thread (and in other threads) - the move to the Phasemation Phonostage, the CSPort, the Thrax preamp, the speakers and then the Thrax amps ... I actually thought: o.k., now his system is ready. I haven't looked in here for a while after that. And then suddenly a new preamp and tube amps appear.

I find this development very impressive. Once again, I have also to say that I envy you the support from François from Ana Mighty Sound, which is also very impressive.

I grant you the pleasure of your hifi system.

 

[dcc]

The move away from Thrax was not something I had expected as I really thought it was my ultimate combo. As washing dirty linen in public is not my style, I won't further comment on the circumstances. I have turned the page and moved on. Hopefully, this is the final move.

My plan for 2025 was a new amplification for my secondary system and they have been achieved.

The Phasemation MA-2000 were delivered this morning.

I put them next to the MA-5000. They look like dwarves.



I brought them upstairs. The setup is temporary as I still need to put a pneumatic Stacore platform beneath the power amps. A friend is coming over in the coming days to help me for this heavy lifting.

 

[Audiohertz2]

Well …?

 

[dcc]

They sound like their big brothers... ;-)

I already tested them earlier this week in my little den. They drive the Cube Audio Nenuphar Mini V2 with ease and authority.

 

[dcc]

Thanks to a great friend, I have been able to acquire three matched pairs of Telefunken ECC83 Smooth Plate and a pair of Philips Miniwatt E88CC SQ. My friend measured many tubes from his vast collection to obtain several matched pairs.

Two pairs of the Telefunken and the pair of Philips Miniwatt were used for replacing the stock tubes from the Phasemation EA-2000 phono stage in the main system. François from Ana Mighty Sound took care of adjusting the settings with his scope.



The new tubes are substantially improving the sound of the phono stage with more "weight" to the music.

The last pair of Telefunken was for the Phasemation MA-2000 power amps in the secondary system.



Inspired by what Stirling Trayle did in my main system last year, I slightly adapted the loudspeakers placement of the secondary system.



With the help of a friend, we brought a Stacore pneumatic platform on which the MA-2000 are now residing.



I also spent quite a lot of time testing different interconnects between the Krell preamp and the MA-2000 power amps. The optimal setup was achieved by using two pairs of Argento Flow interconnects: a pair of XLR from the preamp, a box with two Jensen transformers and then a pair of RCA into the MA-2000. With this setup, the system is absolutely silent with no background noise at all.



François took care of adjusting the Thorens turntable. The measurement from the start were already excellent. He achieved an even better azimuth.





Overall the performance of the secondary system has significantly improved compared to when I installed the MA-2000 last week.

I stil have some areas for improvement to explore in both systems. I am planning to do this gradually.

 

[Glide3]

Fair enough. I've been running GE 211s for over a decade now, considering new production from AN and Mayer, and always looking for data points.

Hi,
I have SET amps using 211 tubes (fully tube rectified with choke loaded ps) and have GE, Amperex, Telefunken rs237, STC 242 (Spanish version) and Elrog Moly 242.
They are all very good to excellent with the Telefunken, Amperex and Elrog 242 being my favorites, in that order. I can be very happy with any of these tubes with the biggest jump being from the GE (which are very good) to any of these other listed tubes.
I have not personally heard the AN, but have heard nice things about them.

 

[bonzo75]

Big room, big speakers, lots of treatment. I had heard this with Line magnetic before, hasn’t liked it, since then dcc has got the next model of cube audio speakers and teamed it with Phasemation MA 200 300b amps. Allnic 7000 phono, TD124 restore by Jaap Pees

Quite amazing how it can scale and get to the music in such a room