I've /passed/sold/heard various pieces over the years, primarily from Accuphase. 
I've always been more of a headphone guy than a speaker guy, so I got into vintage gear to experiment with high end speaker amps to power my Sennheiser headphones, at the time I was using vintage sennies HD540 reference 2 and HD540 Gold (more talk on them later)

Starting in my early 20s..now I'm 27, I got into this hobby during covid with various schitt products before making my way to my first Accuphase piece.
Accuphase E-211




I eventually built a speaker system with this using Focal aria 906 and a Rel subwoofer, sounded great

I've since sold this amplifier after holding onto it for 2 years but It has a soft spot for me in my journey and I do miss its sound, the look and convenience of size, the gear I have now is significantly heavier....
It served as a great entry point/glimpse into what was to come in my journey. And Ive considered perhaps getting the bigger brother of this integrated as a memory of where I started. 

Edited December 4, 2025Dec 4 by velvetanonblue

While I still had Accuphase E-211 amplifier, I ended up going straight for the giants buying a

Sansui B-2301L weighing at 38kg.. (which I've spoken about in the Sansui threads years back)

Very tight sound...amazing bass, never heard anything faster since, detail machine without being overly analytical, great balance between grace and honesty.

I paired it with C-200x at the time (a compromise) 


Not much to say about the C-200x, beautiful preamplifier, it did its job when I had it and sounded wonderful but didn't quite fully unleash the potential of the Sansui. I've since sold the C-200x.

At this time I was using these to run the Focal Aria 906 bookshelves, I put this system together to make a pathway to a great system, the C-200x was intended to be temporary as I wanted to build a fully balanced system.

Edited December 4, 2025Dec 4 by velvetanonblue

most people would be pretty happy with that compromise!

When selling the Accuphase E-211, I used the cash to fund a better preamplifier for the Sansui B-2301L, so that I can have a fully balanced system from the Dac to the amplifier. 

 

Accuphase C-202

These pieces together sounded amazing, B-2301l is designed with a differentially balanced circuit, so being able to use the piece balanced along with the great preamp, I really got to hear what the amplifier was capable of. As I said already, very fast, detailed, analytical yet also musical, great balance between the two. Preamp is very fast, however having this preamp had me curious about.......P-102 Class A amplifier, (coming up much later)

1 hour ago, thejt said:

most people would be pretty happy with that compromise!

Indeed, however b2301l is differentially balanced, using it only in rca would defeat the purpose of getting an amplifier like so, that being said c-200x was no pushover, good preamp but better suited for a different kind of amplifier. 

Having this system for a while, I got curious about tube amplifiers, scoping British tubes at first before finding some niche japanese brands, eventually I found a brand that peaked my interest considerably, getting this big piece at 30kg. 

Uesugi Ubros-3 (Push Pull Amplifier)

Courtesy of @Gabehcuod for taking this photograph ^

I took this photograph however ^

This tube amplifier is the best amplifier I’ve ever owned/heard, although it has also given me a fair amount of trouble, including a poor service job. It has been a while since I last listened to it, but I plan to eventually find a good technician for it.

 

When it was performing well, the soundstage was unbelievable and the bass was the best I have ever heard. I was only able to get that level of performance when I experimented with some Mullard tubes, which completely opened up the sound. After the servicing I had to replace the KT88 tubes, and that changed the character significantly. The original KT88s, which I believe were from the 1970s, had a unique, almost hyper dimensional quality unlike anything I had heard before.

The key, though, was the combination. The 70s KT88s, the Mullards, and pairing the amplifier with the DC81L and DP80L all worked together in a way that created an unreal level of synergy. Only when everything lined up like that did the amplifier reach that mind blowing level of detail and dimension that I didn't think was even possible, yet no one believes me when I talk about it. 

 

Edited December 4, 2025Dec 4 by velvetanonblue

On 04/12/2025 at 6:05 PM, velvetanonblue said:

Having this system for a while, I got curious about tube amplifiers, scoping British tubes at first before finding some niche japanese brands, eventually I found a brand that peaked my interest considerably, getting this big piece at 30kg. 

Uesugi Ubros-3 (Push Pull Amplifier)

Courtesy of @Gabehcuod for taking this photograph ^

I took this photograph however ^

This tube amplifier is the best amplifier I’ve ever owned/heard, although it has also given me a fair amount of trouble, including a poor service job. It has been a while since I last listened to it, but I plan to eventually find a good technician for it.

 

When it was performing well, the soundstage was unbelievable and the bass was the best I have ever heard. I was only able to get that level of performance when I experimented with some Mullard tubes, which completely opened up the sound. After the servicing I had to replace the KT88 tubes, and that changed the character significantly. The original KT88s, which I believe were from the 1970s, had a unique, almost hyper dimensional quality unlike anything I had heard before.

The key, though, was the combination. The 70s KT88s, the Mullards, and pairing the amplifier with the DC81L and DP80L all worked together in a way that created an unreal level of synergy. Only when everything lined up like that did the amplifier reach that mind blowing level of detail and dimension that I didn't think was even possible, yet no one believes me when I talk about it. 

 

 

The Uesugi amp looks great. 

 

What were the original KT88s that you had in there? Do you know what make they were? 

19 minutes ago, mkaramazov said:

 

The Uesugi amp looks great. 

 

What were the original KT88s that you had in there? Do you know what make they were? 

I really wonder but no idea, they seem unbranded, all ubros-3s came with this tube. It's bothersome though because kt88s are really too expensive to just buy and roll, it's a massive gamble and I did that gamble already wasting 500 bucks.

Needed a break from writing...

After buying Uesugi ubros3, I ended up purchasing DC-81L and DP-80L, I was very excited about this cd player, as the DC-81L is a vintage R2R and I think the only R2R dac Accuphase ever did, it also sounds fantastic.

Accuphase DC-81L/DP-80L

 

As a reminder I use most of my gear with vintage sennheiser headphones speaker amped.
With the Ubros-3 running 70s KT88s and Mullard ECC83s, the pairing was absolutely mind blowing. When I ripped CDs and compared them to the commercial discs, there was a significant difference in detail retrieval. Every plucked string came in waves hitting my ear
with such great force, which normally never happens, the detail of the cathedral felt infinite, and the vocals felt so present that it was almost unsettling. The bass hit so hard that I could feel it in my chest even though I was wearing headphones. It was unbelievable.

I have never had a setup move me to tears as much as this one did. The goosebumps were constant. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever achieve that level of synergy again. It is theoretically possible if I can find a proper replacement for those KT88s.

Without exaggeration, even if it sounds like it, I believe this was a level of sound that very few people ever experience. It's somewhat frightening, It makes you extremely pedantic and obsessive about every component in your system because you want to preserve that sound. When something is even slightly off, the stress becomes very real. I didn't think such level of Hifi was even possible and I've heard many systems in my life, ranging in various prices, nothing even comes remotely close, words can barely describe it. 

I've since used this dac with other amps and I'll talk about that but typically this dac on a good solid state, is very transparent, fast, analog sounding, detailed but I genuinely believe you need a good tube amplifier to fully push the detail this dac is able to extract. Though...tube world is whole heap more expensive than the solid state world of vintage hifi. 
 

Edited December 5, 2025Dec 5 by velvetanonblue

10 hours ago, velvetanonblue said:

Without exaggeration, even if it sounds like it, I believe this was a level of sound that very few people ever experience. It's somewhat frightening, It makes you extremely pedantic and obsessive about every component in your system because you want to preserve that sound. When something is even slightly off, the stress becomes very real. I didn't think such level of Hifi was even possible and I've heard many systems in my life, ranging in various prices, nothing even comes remotely close, words can barely describe it. 

 

Yes, a very fortunate and synchronistic experience only for the chosen few, I think. Lucky you.

 

I have had similar reactions in the past (over a long period) from 2 different valve setups; the first was an all-VTL system with Martin Logan CSL speakers playing the output from a pimped-out DYNA FM-3 tuner's live broadcasts. The other system was similar--but using QUAD ESL-63s and a VTL Minimal preamp.

 

Ineffable. Barely describable musical ecstasy. Never forgotten. Makes all the fussing around worthwhile!

 

Has anybody had similar using solid state I wonder? Just asking.

13 hours ago, doogie44 said:

Yes, a very fortunate and synchronistic experience only for the chosen few, I think. Lucky you.

 

I have had similar reactions in the past (over a long period) from 2 different valve setups; the first was an all-VTL system with Martin Logan CSL speakers playing the output from a pimped-out DYNA FM-3 tuner's live broadcasts. The other system was similar--but using QUAD ESL-63s and a VTL Minimal preamp.

 

Ineffable. Barely describable musical ecstasy. Never forgotten. Makes all the fussing around worthwhile!

 

Has anybody had similar using solid state I wonder? Just asking.

I wonder too but I still buy solid state because I see them as more reliable, satisfactory in a different way.

In the future I do plan to experiment with airtight and perhaps monoblock uesugi, ive also considered getting another ubros 3 when ive figured the issue with my current one and found a suitable replacement kt88, then have them both setup with the same caps and run them in monoblocks because ubros3 can be set to monoblocks and then give up to 90 wats of power which is nice, though there is no schematics, so it's hard. Would be so good though haha

Edited December 6, 2025Dec 6 by velvetanonblue