My Rita-880 and how I got there
I’m glad you asked. I’ve been meaning to write this for about two months now.
I’ve had a Rita since about August of 2010. I think it is one of the sweetest sounding amps I’ve ever heard let alone owned. Make that sweet with power. In early spring of 2010 I upgraded from a 200-300 wpc transistor amp to a modern Dynaco ST-120 (hand made by the designer of the upgrades). It came with Sovtek KT-88 and made 45-60 watts a side in triode or pentode mode. It sounded great, heads and shoulders above the transistor amp. There were things I could hear in songs I’ve had in heavy rotation for a decade that I had not heard before. For instance, the fingers sliding into place on the guitar in the left channel on “Bridge of Sighs” about 6 seconds into the song, or hearing the high hat start to vibrate in the left channel during Kieth Richard’s right channel guitar intro on “Struggle” on the “Talk is Cheap” album. It was not just like lifting some blanket that had been hanging between me and the music, it was more like waking up and hearing it while wide awake for the first time.
Before I get to Rita-880 I should talk about the signal path. I’ve ripped everything to aiff files on a home made openSolaris zfs Nas box with 14 2TB disks in a quiet Zalman case on the third floor. I use it for work too...
It is connected to a mac mini via gigabit Ethernet to the ground floor media cave. From there optical out to a Grant Fidelity DAC-09 upgraded to a GE tube, yea. The DAC09 also gets input from an entry level Pro-Ject turntable via a TCC phono preamp. This all now feeds into Rita. The speakers are a pair of Martin Logan SL-3’s that I purchased new about 10 years ago. I love them. Period.
Now while the sound of the ST-120 was a huge improvement the bass was still noticeably “looser” than the SS amp at all volumes. I played around with bi-wiring the SL-3‘s so a SS amp could drive the woofers but this was getting a little complicated. Since I was already happy with the DAC09 and Grant Fidelity in general I decided to see what a quad of black treasures (KT-88) could do for me. Wow! That is what they did. They did “Wow!” for me. They tightened up the low frequencies to the point where it was almost indistinguishable from the SS amp. It sounded like the gain was up about 2 db more than before and the sound went from glorious to “Honey I need a few days alone with my stereo could you please leave the house.” glorious. It did not sound “tubey” but it sounded more musically accurate. Nice as it was the amp proved to require more maintenance than I had time to put into it so I looked around and there was Rita-880, available with the Shuguang KT-88z Treasures I liked so much. At purchase I also upgraded the two front end TJ Full Music 6SN7 to cv181-Z Shuguang Black Treasures also. The two stock TJ Full Music 6SL7 tubes remain.
I now have at least 400 hours on the Rita-880 and tubes. The soundstage is realistic enough to still shock me (and others) at times. The bass is powerful and controlled and the high end, through about 40 inches of curved electrostatic panels is something to behold. I was just cranking a Beastie Boys song that finishes with a bowed stand up bass. Room shaking loud with no sign of strain, and the SL-3‘s are not very efficient. Listening to a Kieth Jarrett download from HDTracks now (the Koln Concert) and I can hear every nuance of THAT piano.
It is an eerily transparent and powerful amplifier. If I could figure out a way to switch it to mono I’d buy another and make em mono blocks. The speed of the tubes in this class A configuration and the speed of the electrostatics really shine on songs like “Nardis” on that Patricia Barber album you all must have by now (Cafe Blue), and any other music with wonderfully recorded drums. My current favorites are “Afro Blue” from the Roy Haynes Trio “Love Letters” album and “Question and Answer” from the “The Roy Haynes Trio” album. The first is a drumming tour de force with commanding solos by the bass player and guitarist. The latter is just an incredible example of how to drum and get out of the way of two other instruments having a conversation, all the while driving and molding the tone of the conversation. Just magical.
I’d like to thank Ian and Rachel for increasing the quality of my life. I now spend “at least” the last two hours of every day ensconced in Hi Fi Bliss that I did not have a year ago. Now about those new Psvane 845T mono blocks...