tgarden
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I received my converted MK IV last Thursday afternoon, and have managed to put about 115 hours on it in six days (I'm dedicated to getting it burned in).
Before hooking it up, I pulled the amp off the chassis to take a look inside. Never having done this to my Mk III, I had nothing to compare to, but I was still able to figure out most of the conversion work. It was very neatly done.
The cool thing is, instead of installing four Jupiter caps, Steve left my four existing "big" V Caps in the amp, and added two much smaller (physically and value wise) Jupiters. The Jupiters are in the final stage, to give it that Jupiter sound.
It's nice Steve left the V Caps in. They were a $500 option originally, and while not up to the level of the Jupiters, they are no slouch in the sonics department when you get a lot of hours on them (mine have 1500-2000 hours).
I would imagine the sound from having 4 V Caps and 2 Jupiters, differs slightly from having the "stock" 4 Jupiters in the Mk IV. I'll never know.
What I do know is that even with only 115 hours on the two Jupiters and the new? wiring and four new switches, I greatly prefer it to the Mk III it used to be.
The biggest thing is "music magnified" soundstage that Steve talked about. Not sure how to describe this yet, I'll get back later when the amp has more hours on it.
Imaging is better than with the Mk III, the individual musicans have greater depth, more of a three dimensional quality.
Increased detail over what I had, in it's earlier Mk III, V Capped version.
I was surprised that the bass started coming in nicely, at 75 hours, no complaints there!
I installed my usual tube compliment (more about that later) with the addition of Tung Sol KT 66's. However, I started out (I have no idea why) with CBS JAN OA3's. I noticed there was a trace of hardness to the sound, which I got from time to time with the Mk III. At 50 hours I switched to my usual RCA JAN OA3's, and the hardness went away. It is very sensitive to OA3 changes.
This is all with my Joseph Chow restored/modded Tandberg 3001a tuner, which is neutral in sound. No added warmth with this upper end tuner!
I tried playing a few LPs, but am patiently waiting 'till I get some more hours on the MK IV conversion, before I get serious about delving into vinyl. Once I do, I'll be lost in another world. It's looking like that world will be a very nice place:)
Mike
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