The Music Box

Buying a valve amplifier from China can be a risky business. You are never quite sure what you are getting until it arrives. The cost to your door can double when you add: Postage + Import Duty + VAT. We have taken some of this worry away by importing these amplifiers with uprated transformers, meeting the UK voltage requirement. Some capacitors have been replaced with better quality Japanese equivalents, improving sound quality. Further improvement is gained with a vintage matched pair of British Mullard valves and vintage Russian valves. The machine is completely hand built and point to point wired using Teflon silver plated wire. The unit comes with one set of RCA analogue inputs. Need more? No problem. We sell a pair of good quality RCA splitters, so you can plug two sources into one input. You can add them at checkout. Just remember not to play both sources at the same time! This class A push-pull amplifier is rated at 8 watts per channel, but it's a surprisingly gutsy performer with the right speakers. We recommend you pair it with speakers of higher sensitivity. As a rough guide, we would recommend a minimum sensitivity of 85 decibels – suitable for a small room. And perhaps 88db or more for a medium size room. Not sure of your speaker's sensitivity? Take a look on the back, or search the internet for the specifications of your model. We have been involved with Hi-Fi equipment since 1979 and have compared many designs. Our preference is for the "vintage sound" of the 70's and 80's - and we believe The Music Box offers that. We tested it against several modern solid state amplifiers, selling at a similar price and above. We used a pair of Q Acoustics 3050i floor standing speakers and were surprised by the bass weight. The midrange and treble are smooth and revealing. It has some of the airiness and spaciousness associated with valve amplifiers. As may be expected with valves, the midrange is the star – all vocals and instruments falling into that range sound sweet and seductive – female vocals are particularly good. The process of refining The Music Box was achieved by testing different combinations of capacitors and valves and listening to the results. We compared it to several other Chinese made valve amplifiers around the same price and higher - we believe ours has improvements in bass, power and dynamics. The smaller pre-amp valves supplied with The Music Box are a matched pair of Mullard M8100. These are new old stock from the 1960's and performed best in our listening tests. The larger power valves are a pair of vintage new old stock 6S19P. Imported directly from Ukraine, these are usually from the 1970's and branded Voskhod or Svetlana. They produce a solid low frequency response and could be considered a smaller sibling, with similar sound qualities, to the highly regarded 300B valves. Please note: The Music Box is hand made inside and out and minor imperfections on the casework are normal. It has an "Industrial Finish". We like it but understand it may not be to everyone's taste! Guarantee: 1 year on the amplifier. 30 days on the valves.