845 DHT SET electrostatic headphone amp (scam alert)

Well, I didn't have personal negative experience so I'm not sure I should, as I decided against it and haven't lost any money. There were simply a few emails back and forth about a CFA3 build (I said Dynahi earlier by mistake.)

The dudes cases look cool (though some comments say even those are very poorly machined,) and everything else seems sketchy after more research. Just thought maybe OP should have a tag on his account pointing towards negative experiences, like @Drakkard's

My personal back and forth was "Thuan" at [email protected], but he has supposedly used lots of names over the years (Lil Knight was an older mention I read.) Based in Vietnam it appears.

The summaries on Head-Case in the Megatron thread and the CFA3 thread linked by @Drakkard are much more extensive, and actually seem to be based in truth vs. Head-Case's overly critical takes on certain things. AKA: The builds are either unsafe, underspecced, or simply don't work.

 

It's worth noting, that image is of Kevin measuring the new transformers he ordered, very shortly before they headed off the the great big electronics heaven in the sky. The ones Kevin ordered from Richard Sumner seem to have been ever-so-slightly under-specced or under-built and suffered thermal runaway when stacked together and enclosed.

That said, the original transformers in the Felitsa Megatron build had shorted windings when tested. That seems to have been the final straw that truly killed the amp.

The difference is, of course, Kevin and Richard stand by their work, fix problems when they are identified, and you know the gear will last.

 

Ah thank you for the clarification man. Edited my post for accuracy's sake.

 

Out of curiosity, how would you have recognized Lil Knight from those posts?

 

As soon as there was a DIY T2 from someone other than the Stax Mafia, it should have got the wheels turning.

 

https://www.head-case.org/forums/to...hone-amplifier/?do=findComment&comment=863358

"I apologize in advance if this is news to absolutely no-one, but after reading the entire DIY T2 build thread in anticipation of receiving my build from George, I was surprised to find a name and handle that looked familiar: Tran, and Lil Knight.

A search showed that the schematics of the failed DIY T2 board/case buy were posted in 2013 by a fellow going by Lil Knight under blogspot account tee8tee84388… to my eyes, that rather unique Blogspot/Reddit/Flickr handle looks very familiar:

Yes, this is the same Tran who later sold the DIY T2 parts kits on head-fi as kytuphicanh, which also happens to be the selfsame Tran that built my ‘Megatron’, stamped FLS Felitsa Audio. That incomplete sale, along with Paramesh’s, outlined earlier, resulted in kytuphicanh being banned (and mostly scrubbed, likely due to dozens of historical classified sales) on head-fi, and a warning placed under his alter ego, tranhieu.

Tran is tee8tee4388 on reddit, tranhieu and kytuphicanh on head-fi, and fls.audio on sbaf and ebay… and we now know that you can presently message him as thuytn right here on head-case, since he so generously reached out, asking me to shut up about my dead ‘Megatron’, because it would ‘heavily affect his future sales’.

Tran, aka Lil Knight, aka tee8tee4388 on blogspot, takes credit for posting his failed DIY T2 board buy schematics here (Posted by Lil Knight, 12:21am, Wednesday, July 31, 2013):

http://tee8tee4388.blogspot.com/2013/07/t2-diy.html

Tran aka tee8tee4388 takes credit for my rather ‘unique’ (and dead) Megatron on reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones...c1c01044cf&utm_source=embedly&utm_term=akp205
Fls.audio aka tee8tee4388 aka Lil Knight aka Tran takes credit for my Megatron build here on SBAF: https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...845-dht-set-electrostatic-headphone-amp.8740/

And Thuan Tran aka Lil Knight here shows off his Stax circa 2009, shipping labels and invoices on Flickr under the same tee8tee4388 user name, as he himself references in the below Reddit post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones...c1c01044cf&utm_source=embedly&utm_term=akp205

https://www.flickr.com/photos/8128018@N06/page2

https://www.flickr.com/photos/8128018@N06/page4

This particular Tran quote on Reddit, as above, caught my eye (regarding Singlepower): “They stole lots of people’s money by not delivering amps. That sucks because their amps sounded very good, much better than the stuffs by Woo now.”

Indeed, that ‘sucks’. How long was Singlepower around for? Who has filled the void?

Tran’s ‘Megatron’ as sold to me omits all CCS loads, contains no inrush current limiting of any kind, has severely underrated power supply capacitors, a failed transformer/winding, and can hardly be called a ‘Megatron’ in the first place.

Fls Audio ‘creations’ still sell today on Ebay. Buyer beware. You now know who you’re buying from."

Mofo has been a scammer since 10 years ago, do not deal with him.

 

I’ve seen that blogspot account before when searching for images of KG amps.

Seems like he was already persona non grata at head-fi and head-case and decided to advertise here. Good to know

 

As I mentioned in the post, It was the first thing I did after it arrived dead and no reply. Did not tried to contact him since, don't really see a point. I can include a screen of my last mails to him if needed)
I'm going for complete re-build now, PCB's from Dukei already arrived today, need to pick em up.

Thanks, might compose a post there a bit later. But I guess he will go silent now for some time again

He was banned on head-fi soon after my order, somewhere in august 2021 =\ Sadly I missed a reason for his ban back then, might be able to stop the purchase.

 

Maybe someone should flag this thread appropriately for those coming to it fresh and ignorant.