Steve Deckert
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UPDATE 8/2/2018
I have been taking these amps into the listening room and spending some time with them after I've finished the QC process, and still can't tell you for sure if the Copper Foil VCAPs or the Copper Foil Jupiter caps are actually better.
So far I have Quality Controlled 16 of these anniversary amps (with many more to go) and am thrilled at the consistency. It's rock solid. Just like all of our stuff, but you know in the back of my mind, since this is SO good there is always that thought what if it's a fluke and not every amp sounds that way!!! For example, when I did the original blue Zen TORII by series-wiring two single-ended air-gapped transformers together to create a high-loss push-pull transformer... Man that sounded good. Problem was only 1 in 3 or 4 amps actually even worked, so we would have to build the amplifiers and then play musical transformers for in some cases weeks until we found a match that would not become unstable at high frequencies.
Anyway when crap like that happens you gain an understanding that just because something works or sounds incredible once or even four times in a row it's no guarantee it will sound that way a hundred times in a row. I have however every confidence with this amp in particular That each one will sound identical. With it's 25 year history of perfect stability into everything from no connection to a dead short and even it's ability to drive electrostatic interfaces which simply torment most amplifiers, even with this unreal resolution, if anything it is making it easy to hear how identical each amp is... more so than normal.
Anyway back to the caps, I do see that after 8 hours of playing, the Copper Foil beeswax caps sound completely burned-in and always strike me a lot sooner than the VCAPS. That said, when the cool back to room temperature they will go back to their normal un burned-in sound until they actually do burn-in. The beauty of the Jupiter Copper Foils used in the Decware amps is that even during the burn-in process of several hundred hours, you can hear the caps as if they were burned-in by simply giving the amplifier about a 4 or 5 hour head start playing music before you start your listening session.
The Copper VCAPS in their defense once they do burn-in sound more present, a touch more forward even perhaps more intimate. Also the dynamics are even more impressive and the overall gain of the amp is slightly higher.
So after listening to 16 of these 25th Anniversary Zen Triode amplifiers I realize another thing about them that I have not mentioned before. It is called Logarithmic Fidelity. This is when good recordings explode into the room as if you had ten times the power you actually do. So when going from a recording that is molested from the start to a great recording on a normal amplifier, there is a noticeable difference. On a good amplifier, there is an appreciable difference. On a great amplifier there is a large difference. On an incredible amplifier there is a giant difference. It's a logarithmic amount of difference.
Also important to note is that this is all digital recordings I'm making this observation on. The power of the amplifier seems to literally follow the logarithmic quality of the recording. I could pick dozens of songs that sound like the amp is distorting badly and broken, making you certain there is only about a watt or two at most and making you feel like you need way more. THEN the good recordings come in and suddenly it sounds like you have literally 10 or 15 watts, more than you need for sure, and wow is it powerful sounding.
Logarithmic Fidelity, driven by speed, transparency, simplicity and quality.
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