Roll over, Beethoven

 I didn’t realize our Sept. 8 column (Still crazy after all these years), which discussed the extremely rare preamplifier tube, the ECC803, would cause quite a stir among audiophiles worldwide. The 1940-era Telefunken ECC803 was handpicked by Saul Marantz’s chief engineer Sid Smith for the 1980-upgraded version of the 1960-era Marantz 7c preamplifier. The tube created quite a sensation when a few boxes of it were sold recently at the tubedepot.com for $700 per tube. Within seconds, the sale was posted, all the stash of the coveted tube was wiped out.

Neal Kooppe, a reader from Ontario, Canada, wrote that he needed four pieces and was prepared to pay a premium for them. Unfortunately, a friend of mine who has such a tube wasn’t willing to sell at any cost, even after Neal — through several e-mails to me — upped his price to $1,000 a piece. Sorry, Neal, better luck next time!

On the other side of the globe was a happy Red Moore of New Jersey who said he has the three of the best preamps — the Marantz 7c bought in 1983 — which he hardly uses because he’s content with his other preamplifier, the French-made Jadis 80. He also has in his collection the US-made SP3.  After reading the Philippine STAR online, he opened his Marantz and found the ECC803 tubes intact, all six of them still in mint condition.

“Boy, I couldn’t be luckier! It was from your column where I learned that the model 7c is fitted with the 803. All along, I thought that the tubes inside were 12ax7,” Red says, adding unequivocally, “I won’t sell them.”

I wrote in that column that the 803 has been sought after because preamps fitted with 12ax7 tubes would superbly perform once they are rolled over (an audiophile term which means “to substitute”) to 803s.

This I learned first-hand when Binondo trader and audiophile Robert Tan lent me four 803s and an Audio Research-made SP3 preamp. The SP3 has eight 12ax7 stock tubes. For some audiophiles, SP3 has the reputation of being the finest preamp ever made. Its story is even more fascinating. It was born exactly when the transistor technology was slowly making headway; and the tube technology was believed to be in its death throes. Audio Research proved all those skeptics wrong; up to this time, its Plymouth manufacturing plant in Minnesota churns out tube-fitted electronic products.

The SP3 lived up to expectations when I wired it in my system. The sound was transparent; the imaging was superb. I thought: What more can one ask for from this vintage audio gear? But as Robert has instructed, I rolled over four 12ax7 tubes to the 803s: one pair for the phono stage and one pair for line stage. How did it perform? It glued my ears to Dom Romao’s Saudades album. It was thrilling track after majestic track — the sounds playing so smoothly that the speakers became invisible, and the music seemed to come from the space in front of me. And when my turntable spun the album, Cantate Domino, it seemed to me like I could pick out each voice from a chorus of several people as the music maintained its silky and airy texture.

But Red from New Jersey went even further: “I rolled over the 12ax7 in my heavily modified Jadis 80 to ECC803 and it sounded better. But when I fitted the 803 tubes to my SP3 man, Beethoven’s music virtually rolled over me. My SP3 beat the hell out my Jadis 80. In the shootout, Jadis came third, next only to my Marantz 7c.” (Red admitted though that he was alone when he did the shootout. His observation is entirely his own, and is not meant to favor one brand over another.)

What does the 803 do to an amplifier to deserve such accolade? Nothing, if you ask me. Audiophiles and sound experts will tell you that the best preamp is to have no preamp at all.  What it means is that the best preamp is the one that doesn’t interfere (either adding or subtracting anything) with the sonic signature of your system. To me, a preamp should be nothing more than a straight wire connecting your musical sources (CDs, tapes, tuner, or turntables in some models) with your amplifiers.

The commercial ECC803 traces its roots to its military-grade ancestors. Ultra low in tolerance, ECC803’s military version was heavily used in telecommunications during  World War II, where it proved its accuracy and efficiency as a must-have electronic tool for the Germans. In hi-fi, the 803 splendidly does the job of making the preamp a neutral component in the entire audio chain.

A member of WiredState, an internet forum for audiophiles, who begged not to be identified, summed it all up: “I had three pieces of ECC803s a few years back. I tried it briefly on my Jadis JPL line stage, and my immediate reaction was: It is the kind of tube that makes a ‘statement’. It is akin to viewing your window after a thorough cleaning: the clarity of the entire sound spectrum is simply amazing.”

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For comments or questions, e-mail me at audioglow@yahoo.com or at vphl@hotmail.com