Analog Ethos Legendarium 2A3 SET kit

theflattire

Super Member
okay here we go!
Analog Ethos Legendarium!

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The kit was double boxed, very nicely packed. Foam and bubbles all over the place. Parts kit in a separate bag along with trannies and chassis.

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Hammond and Edcor, no worries there. Box was about 10-15 lbs; heavy iron!

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Thick manual. Top plate is nice too, maybe 1/8"? All the holes nicely finished, no rough edges and very straight. I was thinking I was going to polish it up, but I really want to get this together!

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Chassis is nice too. I was expecting just painted wood, but looks like it was filled then sanded because you can't tell its wood from the outside. Very nice touch compared to say the unfinished look of Bottlehead. Bottlehead does you give you the option of finishing it however you like while Analog Ethos has three set colors.
Okay, I'll lay stuff out before I get started so you can see exactly what was in the kit.
 
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Why Analog Ethos?
No reviews anywhere, no pictures other than off the website.
I was a bit hesitant, but after an email or two I decided to go.
I looked at all the usual suspects: Elekit, Bottlehead, AudioNotekit, and a couple of others out there.
I didn't want an integrated, and I decided I didn't want to go 300b.
Analog Ethos Legendarium fit my needs. For now...

Parts kit:

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Another thing I wanted was point to point. The reason I went SET in the first place was to remove as much stuff from the signal path.

I was worried about parts, but everything looks nice and quality. I did fall off the cliff and order some coupling caps and and gold plated tube sockets.
The sockets with the kit are nice though, ceramic. More on that when I get there.
Okay. Time to warm the ole Hakko, open the instructions, and start soldering.
With my $1 a foot solder...
 
A little less than three hours in and most of hardware is mounted.
Struggled a bit with the choke as it was kinda close to one of the OPTs, cursed some but got it okay.
I changed out the tube sockets for gold ones; the supplied were nice, nothing wrong but well, I got them gold ones and I figured a little less Deoxit in the future.
All the holes in the chassis are pre-drilled and perfect. So far all the hardware is right on; I wish though I could have gotten a couple of extras. There is a bag labeled 'extras' unfortunately no extra washer for the one that mysteriously disappeared (stubborn choke one).
Going together with nary a hitch!
Knock on wood!

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Not quite 5 hours in and I've hit a snag.
The illustration is not quite the same as the parts I got; the socket for the power cord is a little different from the diagram and I'm not sure which terminals are what. The socket is also fused so going into the fuse box I think that top right terminal is hot, but I'm not sure about the other two and the other two look different.
I've emailed Mr. Analog Ethos, Perry, and hopefully he'll get back to me in the morning. I haven't soldered anything on to the socket yet.
I'll try to see how far I can get before quitting for the night.

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Okay, 8 hours and I figure I'm about half way done.
Just started on the drivers but I think I'm gonna leave it for tomorrow.
So far, so good. No snags except for the AC line and on/off switch.
Lot of the wire lengths are long to better to measure before cutting the recommended lengths in the instructions, especially if you want to make it a bit cleaner. Just have to watch your routing.
Hopefully I get sound tomorrow!
 
Not quite 5 hours in and I've hit a snag.
The illustration is not quite the same as the parts I got; the socket for the power cord is a little different from the diagram and I'm not sure which terminals are what. The socket is also fused so going into the fuse box I think that top right terminal is hot, but I'm not sure about the other two and the other two look different.
I've emailed Mr. Analog Ethos, Perry, and hopefully he'll get back to me in the morning. I haven't soldered anything on to the socket yet.
I'll try to see how far I can get before quitting for the night.

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The picture looks the same as your socket if you look from above. You want the green chassis earth wire to go to the center (bottom) pin, and the white and brown ones need to be on the top left.

Also looks like the green ones should go to that tag on the back, just up from the nut where you currently have them.
 
Power sockets are usually labelled L, N, G. Either inside the socket end where the power cables installs or on the back near the connections.
 
The picture looks the same as your socket if you look from above. You want the green chassis earth wire to go to the center (bottom) pin, and the white and brown ones need to be on the top left.

Also looks like the green ones should go to that tag on the back, just up from the nut where you currently have them.

thanks! just got informed that I do have those two reversed.

Power sockets are usually labelled L, N, G. Either inside the socket end where the power cables installs or on the back near the connections.

Man I tried looking at the back with a magnifying glass but couldn't make out jack. It looked like it was marked for amperage but apparently the N is marked somewhere. Thanks!
 
About 11 hours in and I think the wiring is done.
Now, all the caps.

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I guess no matter how many times you do this, you still worry about cold joints. Especially the speaker and line terminals where it's so thick. I just make sure to tin everything!
 
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Except...I got no sound.
Well, I got a little sound if I crank my pre.
Checked and double checked the wiring, speaker terminals, and inputs. Looks okay to me.
I got a bit of smoke on initial power up but it looked like just a resistor shorting out against something; I turned it off right away and nothing looks burnt.
Getting some hum that I can adjust out and all the tubes are lighting up.
Only thing I can think of is the volume/potentiometer. It's an ALPS pot so not very suspect.
Got an email into Perry to maybe he can help me.
 
I would recommend checking all of your solder joints and making sure that you didn't miss any. Something like that can happen when there's a poor or intermittent connection.
 
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Except...I got no sound.
Well, I got a little sound if I crank my pre.
Checked and double checked the wiring, speaker terminals, and inputs. Looks okay to me.
I got a bit of smoke on initial power up but it looked like just a resistor shorting out against something; I turned it off right away and nothing looks burnt.
Getting some hum that I can adjust out and all the tubes are lighting up.
Only thing I can think of is the volume/potentiometer. It's an ALPS pot so not very suspect.
Got an email into Perry to maybe he can help me.

Once you see smoke, STOP! Don't assume the problem "went away." Little or no signal means something's shorted to ground. First thing is to remove all tubes, bring the power up on a Variac, and check voltages from the power transformer. Then add the rectifier tubes, bring it up slowly, and watch your B+ at the rectifier. If it doesn't come up to normal, you've got a short in the power supply. If that checks out, add the signal tubes and bring it up slowly again. If the voltages don't come up right, you've got a short in the signal chain. Check the cathode circuits of the 2A3s, make sure they're good. If there are bypass caps, make sure they are oriented properly, negative to ground.
 
Thanks guys!
I went back through everything this morning, for the fourth time and found the problem. I had mixed up the 1k and 1M resistors on the driver stage.
Working like a charm now!
So happy!

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Now I can take a look at them Paramours and maybe do some 20 year maintenance on them.
 
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A few more thoughts:

Perry, the owner of Analog Ethos was very helpful and answered emails promptly. This apparently is not a full time gig so I'm sure he is busy with other things but he was there when I needed help. His other kits look inviting!

The kit had some quality stuff: Vishay resistors, Alps pots, Hammond and Edcor iron, etc. Perry wasn't fooling around when he told me he sourced quality parts. The only upgrades I did were gold tube sockets and I got some coupling caps (not installed yet). The supplied sockets were of good quality. Nothing here you would really want/need to upgrade, unless you just like upgrading (like me, but I'm pretty happy). Fit and finish of all the parts, chassis was great, better than expected! Tube set is Electro Harmonix power and driver, JJ rectifier (he said EH rectifier was noisy), but you can substitute some JJ too. I'll probably drop my RCAs in there. Everything was bagged individually and easy to find.

The build was straight forward. No issues (except for my own mistakes), great instructions and illustrations, easy to follow! Has a section explaining tube amps. Overall it took me about 13 hours (not including diagnostic time to find my error). That's with me tinning all the wires and joints. My advice is NOT to marathon the build!

You do need some soldering skills. Especially with the driver tubes 9 pin socket; the space is small and there are a lot of jumpers etc. Using a real soldering iron helped a lot. My first go with my Paramours, I had a cheap pen and then a Radshak station and had some trouble. This time, using a Hakko, it was a breeze. Soldering multiple elements at the same time were easy and fast. I also had a set of jewelers pliers; they were a little better than just regular long nose. Also plan on using jewelers side cutters when I go back in to change the caps and clean up some places. A good wire stripper would have been handy.

Overall, a great kit! Sound wise its hard for me to comment since I already had SETs. I'll say this: I haven't noticed any drop off in SQ and I'm still doing some tube rolling.
Cost wise, this kit is right there with all the others. Again, the reason I went with this is that I didn't want an integrated. Then again, it has a volume control and I may decide to go only vinyl and plug my phono stage directly in. Or I may go back in a bypass the potentiometer. Less stuff in the signal path the better, no?

Verdict: fun kit to build and highly recommended!
 
Day two follow up.
I kept the provided tubes in, Electro Harmonix 2A3s, EH 12AY7s, and JJ 5U4GB, for as long as I could hold myself back.
First to go was the rectifier. I wasn't expecting anything but it did seem to tighten up the bass. The EH 2A3s were a bit bass heavy, not like the bass fatigue of the Sovteks, but enough that I noticed. Not unpleasing, but they seemed to veil the mids and high some. Okay, done with that.
In came my old RCAs, then while I was at it, I changed the drivers to NOS RCAs too. Now the amp is all NOS RCA.
WHOA. Everything changed! Cymbals were more upfront/side to side, attack and decay of the crashes were more noticeable, the highs came back. The lows tightened up to point where I could now hear some modulation of the bass strings! Wow. Bass is still there but more controlled; not as fat, but still deep.
Presentation has more impact. Sound stage is, well, different. Like OMG different. On Aja, Black Cow sounds like a different master! Steve Gadd's crashes and rides on the title track are not in the background anymore and his drum solo has way more impact. This amp just may be a really good match for my Darlington Labs phono stage. It seems like the Paramours were hiding some of what the Darlington Labs was sending to the amp. Even that first chord on Deacon Blues got my attention!
I think the EH tubes were masking some of the mids; I was starting to feel like the music was a bit veiled. Like how PP tubes sound. Nice, but missing something. That's all gone. The veil has been lifted and I'm back to the old sound, with improvements.
I'm pretty stoked. I mean I could live with this for a long time...until I get 300bs. Kidding. Sort of.

I would say this amp does well with bass and controlling the highs. Last night I was listening to a hot recording of Milt Jackson and on the Paramours he sounded like he was pegging the recording needles. Well he still sounded like he was in the red, but with less distortion. Deeper bass than the Paramours with the same power tubes.

Overall, I think this amp is an improvement over my 20 year old Paramours. Not that Paramours were bad; they were around the first generation so without some of the improvements and upgrades that came later. I almost went with the Stereomour.

FYI, I'm not really a tube roller. I am an RCA and Telefunken fanboy as that is what I ran in my old Fisher X101. I just try to stick with what worked for me.
I do have some new coupling caps coming in though, to replace the Claritys; Mundorf and Miflex. Probably going to change out to the Miflex. We'll see if that makes any diifference.

Anyways, I was hoping this wasn't going to be a lateral move. I mean even if it was, I would still be happy seeing as how old my Paramours were. The fact that I'm getting some improvement in SQ is icing on the cake! I think when you build it and it exceeds expectations, well, that's a good thing.
 
Aja is a great LP to do listening test with. The instrumentation is very well mixed for instrument separation, dynamic range and all the frequencies. I've recommended it several times. Enjoy.

Thanks!
It's bee a go to since high school!
 
That's a nice looking kit. Only thing, I wouldn't have changed the sockets if the originals were good quality. Are the gold ones you subbed made in China? Lots of posts have reported problems with Chinese sockets losing their tension.

Jack
 
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