Great report, Ked, thanks for your dedication to inform us all about these very interesting audio experiences! Much appreciated.
Just to be sure: I love my single ended Kondo Kagura’s with good 211 tubes such as the RCA’s you listened to. The single ended topology and the 211 valves have something very attractive cq appealing (at least to my ears). Miguel of Tripoint Audio grounded my Kagura’s and the (sound) differences for the better - more transparency, better dynamics, added serinity to name a few ‘audiophile aspects’ - were quite significant. So what I am actually saying is that the Kagura’s might even be (much) better amps than you have experienced so far. Anyway, I am glad to read that you enjoyed yourself very much with them.
In my set up - dominated by the Tidal Audio La Assoluta loudspeakers - the 30 watts push pull version of the Kondo Gakuoh mk 1 might be a (somewhat) better combination with the LA’s than the Kagura’s (although I am still not 100% sure about that in all honesty). The push pull amps seem to have better control over the big woofers in my LA’s than the Kagura’s. But oh boy, I do (also) love the single ended triode sound of the Kagura’s.
In general I always liked the sound of the Kondo (pre)amps. As I have mentioned earlier to Bob of Rhapsody, I adore in particular their purity because this purity of the Kondo’s reminds me of the beautiful tonality of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, a concert hall that I visit on a regular basis. I strongly believe that the purity of the Kondo’s partly follows from the fact that they only use copper chassis for all their amps in stead of the usual aluminum.
You listened to the single ended mk ii version of the Gakuohs with WE 300b’s and two gz34 tubes per amp. I play the push pull mk I version of my Gakuoh amps with Takatsuki 300b valves and employ one GZ34 metal base tube per amp. So my Gakuohs are different amps than the ones you listened to and liked so much. I also know that your experiences with the Takatsuki 300b valves so far were not really great. Furthermore I believe you are not a (big) ‘fan’ of large cone loudspeakers but clearly prefer horns (and possibly ribbon loudspeakers as well). And last but not least you clearly prefer analog to digital. In light of all this (I am only using digital sources at the moment) the omens that you will actually like my LA system are not good. But … as far as I know you have never experienced the benefits of top notch grounding with the most recent and best Tripoint Audio ‘grounding’ boxes and ground cables currently available. These Tripoint devices elevate the performance of the LA/Kondo/Wadax set up (and I strongly believe: any audio system) to such a level that I am confident you will actually start to like (or who knows: maybe even start to love
) large cone loudspeakers with only digital sources. You are definitely most welcome to come over to Holland and visit me: and of course I will let you be ‘the judge’.