ToneAudio's Product Of The Year...

The Decware Zen Mystery Amp ...

The DECWARE High Fidelity Engineering Zen Mystery Amp is so good, we're giving it our Product of the Year award for 2014. Steve Deckert makes some great stuff, and we loved the 25 watt per channel Torii a couple of years ago, but the ZMA pumps out 40wpc and is even further refined. One of the best valve amplifiers we've heard at ANY price. If you can live with 40wpc, this is your little slice of heaven.

It's nice to see such a great company with hand made in the USA point to point build quality, excellent customer service and the best warranty in the business bar none (not to mention a company who also competes and challenges the value of companies who build their products in China and other overseas factories), getting kudos from such a popular and well respected magazine as ToneAudio!

Just wanted to give a shout out and congrats to Steve D and company and I'm proud to be a Decware owner myself.

 

No photo ?

 

It's a Mystery...

 

Here's a couple from the Decware website:




Edit: Note the size of the Caps used

 

Magnificent!!!

 

Congratulations to Steve Deckert and Decware! I've been using their products since 1998 and have at the moment four amps, four preamps, a phono preamp, and three sets of speakers. I'm a customer for life. I recommend them to anyone who wants great sound at reasonable prices, and with a lifetime warranty.

 

That is one beautiful piece of gear. I would love to hear it.

Never had a tube amp. Maybe some day!

What speakers pair well with this amp?

 

The 40 watts opens a lot of speaker options and those watts are "tubed" based so IMO it will have excellent bass extension and slam. I have heard guys on the Decware forums driving speakers of 89dB with good results and enough volume for mid to large areas. I have a feeling this would pair great with Harbeth 30.1/40.1 as well as even more efficient speakers such as Decware's own, Omega, Zu Audio and Tekton to name a few.

 

Absolutely gorgeous. Dare I ask the price? I'm assuming this is quite a bit more than the Rogue Cronus Magnum?

edit- yup - $5600 ....

 

It's not cheap, but if you think about all the high quality parts used, the hand made point to point wiring and the lifetime warranty I still think its one of the best values out there and hard to beat. I think Steve's circuit designs are pretty special as well ... he has a way of making push/pull amplifiers produce even order harmonic sounds similar to what you hear with Single Ended Triodes (even order harmonics are what makes SET amps so addictive IMO), so you get SET type sound but with more wattage output.

 

I don't think they've ever made a single ended triode power amp yet, have they? It would be interesting to see what they come up with for a SET.

I like the transformer balanced inputs on the one you posted up there. I have always thought that their mini Tori would be the best one to get if you only need a few watts. Do those amps run cool in the summer?

 

Beautiful. I also dig their philosophy (and pricing) on cabling. They also have some great opinion pieces on hifi in general.

http://www.decware.com/newsite/articles.html

 

They actually have 3 S.E.T.'s in their current line up:

1. Zen Triode @ 2 watts
2. Super Zen Triode @ 2 watts (tweaked upscaled version of the Zen Triode)
3. SE34I.4 @ 6 watts (aka Rachel, aka Zen Triode Integrated)

On top of that Steve is in the midst of designing a pair of S.E.T. mono block amps based on the 6C33C tube that will be in the teens wattage wise. This should be something special (its the tube used for Russian MiG and nuclear missile guidance systems).

I have never heard the Mini Torii, but I own the Taboo MK II which I've heard sounds similar. The Taboo runs slightly higher than cool (more towards medium) in the summer, but the Mini Torii has a few more tubes so I'm just speculating that it may put out more heat than the Taboo.

If one only needed a couple watts, the Zen Triode or Super Zen Triode are probably his most revered amps as those 2 watts seem to be something really special and up until the ZMA came out the Torii was probably his second most loved (some still wouldn't part with their Torii though).

 

I've never liked the funerary look of that amp but it has fascinated me.
Did I see balanced inputs in that photo?

IMO: $5600 is not stratospheric for a tube amp of this quality.
PS: I know it can be ordered with different wood.

 

Very true. We aren't quite finished with the final copy on the review, but the ZMA is one of the most musically natural tube amplifiers I've had the pleasure to listen to at any price. Steve Deckert is a great guy and builds fantastic stuff, with a lifetime warranty I might add. If you only need 40wpc, I can't suggest a finer tube amplifier.

I've had the privilege to hear a lot of incredible products, yet I remain super impressed with the ZMA.

 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
I think it looks better with different wood but
I know this black configuration is popular.

BTW: Does anyone know the cost to retube?

 

Yes, fully transformer balanced XLR inputs (made by Jensen IIRC). I also prefer the Walnut base over the black figured base.

 

I wasn't aware of this before. Thanks!

 

I agree on all counts. Based on its it looks, about the only person I would recomend this amp to would have to be Stevie Wonder. Btw, can one order it without the wood?

Very interesting parts decidions parts-wise. As for those psu caps, they get "The best PSU capacitor used in audio amplifier anywhere anytime" award from me. If I built my own amp, I would use el. caps of this size. Also, when I was looking into signal caps for my amp, it turned out that Decware were the first tho use the Jupiter copper foil caps that I was interested in. This was good enough recomendation for me and I ended up buying 8 of these for my own (non Decware) amp. We'll see how this goes.

 

Depending on what you retube this with I'd say 300 to 400 dollars. Of course mostly you would replace power tubes, which I would estimate at 150 to 200 for matched quads of most types and brands you'd be likely to use, new production.

 

Thanks beowulf,

I think those 3 amps are single ended pentode amps wired as triodes with a small amount of feedback. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I was just noticing that they haven't made a triode amp with triodes in it such as 2A3, 300B, 211, etc. I guess their new 6C33 amplifier will be their first "triode" amp. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.

I have always wanted to hear a Decware amp. You never see them at the audio shows. I guess the only way to hear one is to take a chance and buy one. About a 12 week lead time I think.

Oh, the champagne problems of the audio enthusiast.....

 

Still, a beauty at any price.

 

You're right, except I don't think you're right about the feedback.

 

Beowulf,
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought I read on the Decware forum that Steve had stopped working on this amp because it was going to be cost prohibitive. Or was that a different project?

 

I see what you mean, yes I agree with you as I don't ever recall reading that he has used a 300B, 211, etc. tube. His circuit designs for those particular amps are SET just not the tubes. As far as feedback the particular amps I listed all run with zero negative feedback in pure class A according to the specs listed in the descriptions.