How not to buy an amplifier - part two
Thoress, Shindo and some audio chicanery (part one here)
(This is part two of the series, click here for Part One)
"Among the late Ken Shindo's last designs … the most significant may be the D'Yquem mono amplifier … and stands as the finest amplifier I've had in my home." — Art Dudley
The Dude, Mr Dudley, gave the D’Yquem some high praise indeed, and this is the guy who has had the Lamms, most Shindos and even the mega-buck Engstrom Lars in his listening room. And unlike many reviewers in the audio industry for whom the latest flagship Magico speaker is the best they have ever heard (until the next six-digit flagship Magico is released1) — In Dudley we trusted. Until, sadly, the Dude was no more.
… The D'Yquem excels at everything I most value—musical drive, melodic flow, color, texture, scale, impact …
This is the fun of Audiophilia, this is why we pay the big bucks: There exists an artisan somewhere halfway across the planet tinkering in his workshop turning a bunch of new/vintage capacitors, resistors, wires, transformers, vacuum tubes etc — hitherto boring electrical doodads — into green steel boxes that elicit tears of musical joy.
Well, then, why didn’t I jump on the D’yquems ASAP? Why hem and haw and haggle?
Well, unlike some oligarchs in this hobby, I was working with a limited budget. The budget had a built-in-ceiling, and the Dyquem’s were 40% north of my ceiling. But like every Audiophile ever, I used some very questionable logic to convince myself that this one time it’s worth breaking the bank. I believe it’s a similar logic to one used by some audiophiles in Hong Kong employed to justify purchasing $12000 jewel-bedecked fuses2 for each of their audio boxes3. I think all of us audiophiles must have some built-in logic circuitry to enable such tomfoolery (audiofoolery?).
But by the time I got through the three H’s (hem-haw-haggle) and was ready to crack open my bank account — the D’yQuems were gone. They were gone, gone, gone — leaving me shellshocked.
This amp was in the market for 5 long months (I thought it would be snapped up in day two); and just my luck that someone decides to walk into seller’s house on this particular day when I finally decided to break the bank, and buys it under my nose paying a $3000 premium. A lightning bolt indeed.
Arrggggh! I said, and moved on. (Yeah right! I wish I was this Zen-Buddha about it, I sulked and cussed at the world and myself for about two weeks before I actually moved on)
C’est la vie. Somewhere a part of me (the sane-non-audiophile part) thanked this anonymous soul for saving me the thousands of dollars.
So there was back on the hunt. Thrown back into the jungle-zones of audio forums and dealers and audio marts. I turned my attention to the runners-up, Dudley’s Haut Brion, but it was sold too. And now suddenly little green Shindo boxes were no longer in my audiophile future.
Then there were two: Air Tight ATM-300R and Thoress F2A11. The Thoress, as a brand, was unfamiliar but was in consideration thanks to a fellow raving audiophile friend and impeccable reviews. On further googling, I even found a favorable Dudley review on the Thoress 300b mono blocks, and I contacted Mr Reinhard Thoress the man behind the amps.
With the Air Tight amp costing as much as the D’yquems my future was increasingly looking Thoress-y. And Mr Thoress was one of the most polite, responsive, modest yet thoroughly knowledgeable person I have encountered in the audio world. Communications with Mr Thoress, the German master-maker, was pure pleasure; a pleasant contrast from dealers who are often very transactional. We mutually decided that the 6W Thoress F2A11 might not be enough power for my speakers (Devore O/96) and decided that the 20W Thoress 845 was the way to go.
I read and re-read everything there was to read about the Thoress 845s on the internet. There isn’t much, but one reviewer compared its sound signature to the almighty Kondo Ongaku — mighty praise indeed. Another forum-member claimed that a Thoress amp paired with Shindo preamps had reduced him to tears at a listening event. Normally in this hobby I shed tears at the damage my audio foolery has caused to my bank account, it would be nice for a change, I thought, for these tears to be induced musically.
But the 845s were Thoress’s flagship, and priced accordingly. Also Thoress amps have an unconventionally railway wagon look — way cool — but geometrically unfit for my audio rack. Despite Mr Thoress’ tantalizing discount, with custom duties taken into account, it again came way outside, by least 20%, of my budget ceiling.
That too, a non-Shindo amp! that too, unheard by me! In my breezy audiophile days in the USA, I would have taken the plunge, but living in an non-audiophile-friendly country like India, I would be left high and dry on the 1% chance that the Thoress didn’t pan out.
Again, I went into frenzied thought processes and googling and calling up fellow audiophiles with despair tinged voice seeking help — impossible of course — and it consumed most of my idle waking hours. Weeks passed. Mr Thoress, like every good salesman, had put an expiry date on his offer, and I was a week away from his deadline when suddenly a Shindo Cortese 300b came up in the used market.
I leapt on it like a salivating hungry old wolf that hasn’t seen a morsel for weeks. This time I eschewed two out of the three Hs (no hem, no haw, only haggle — I can’t help it, I am Indian4) and I locked on the Cortese 300b with Western Electric 300b tubes that was well within the ceiling of my budget. And two days later, it got delivered.
Well, Mr Rolf Dobelli, is not always right, sometimes overthinking and procrastinating does pay off. In my case it certainly did. And I am awaiting its arrival with great anticipation.
Epilogue:
But that is not the end of the story. When part 1 of this two-part series was published three weeks, suddenly I was swamped with a flood of offers for buying a Shindo amplifier (making my hasty purchase of Cortese 300b decision seem rash): two other Shindo D’yQuem, Shindo Western Electric 300b amongst other uber-rare Shindo amps, and finally very very suspiciously — a Shindo F2A amp (my original purchase) from a guy in Chennai (same origin city as my dealer claimed my Shindo F2A amp was DOA and was allegedly sent back to Singapore).
(Perhaps) more to come, on How definitely not to buy an amplifier.
Suddenly flaws are discovered in the previous iteration — obviously not mentioned in the older review — which this current pricier iteration supposedly fixes — Pure Audiofoolery!
https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/qsa-lanedri-series.36078/
Man! One electric fault in HK power lines — $60000 gone! (I am assuming a minimum of 5 boxes per audiophile, given hardcore audiophiles think more gear = more music)
:)