sebrof
Ex Member
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Since 76's review was the only one I saw on the Zen Amp kit (ZKit1), and since he went the non-conventional route and built it without the circuit board, I thought I'd give my impressions.
The kit is easy to build. Not much to say - Download the instructions from the website, heat up your iron, and start slinging solder. Pay attention to polarity on a couple of caps and make sure the big resistor is up off the circuit board so it doesn't burn the board. Make 6 jumpers and install. Bob's your uncle, as they say. You're done. Took me about 3 hours because I took my time.
This whole "Hi Efficiency / Low Power" stuff is new to me, so maybe I'm easily impressed. I'm used to 100 - 325 watt amplifiers, so I was sure the 2 watt kit was just a fun little toy - an experiment until I found a suitable amp. For $300 + tubes I figured I'd limp along until I found an amp to use long term. Wrong. This thing is the real deal. I have 104db speakers in a fairly small room, and the power is all I'll ever need. I can't speak to bigger rooms or less efficient speakers. Aside from the volume, it sounds very very good, and it's stock; cheap interconnects, generic speaker wire, $30 worth of tubes (total). It's a joke to look at since I still have it sitting on "my favorite chunk of wood" - Remember, it was supposed to be a short-term deal. Now I gotta go get a fancy box for the thing. I'm sitting here listening as I write and I'm really enjoying it. Sound is clean, full, detailed. Bass has a lot of weight, highs are smooth, vocals are pure and don't sound veiled at all.
To sum it up - If you're thinking about it, do it. Unless your system (speakers and room) are not suitable I really don't think you can go wrong.
Enjoy - Mike
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