Bottlehead Kaiju 300B VS Elekit TU-8600S

Discussion in 'DIY' started by Lickumms, Jul 19, 2022.

  1. Lickumms

    Lickumms Acquaintance

    Contributor
    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2022
    Likes Received:
    78
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Location:
    USA
    Looking for comparisons between these 2 power amps.

    How is the performance between the 2?
    How much does upgrading parts affect the sound of the amps?
    I would be using them in a near field setting with high sensitivity speakers. So the one with lowest noise floor would be preferred.

    I would be getting the Lundahl Version Elekit and the Kaiju DC filament.

    Also, wondering how difficult the build and upgrades on these 2 power amps would be? I have a familial tremor in my hands that makes doing really small things quite difficult. I was able to build the Bottlehead Crack with Speedball fine but if these are more difficult, as in doing smaller more accurate soldering, I don't know if I would be able to build them.
     
    Last edited: Jul 19, 2022
  2. k4rstar

    k4rstar Britney fan club president

    Pyrate BWC
    Joined:
    Jun 11, 2016
    Likes Received:
    6,942
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    If you like, I would build either amp for you without labour cost.

    My choice would be the Kaiju, but it will need a pre-amp with volume control, so that would be the major consideration. Better iron, better circuit.
     
    • Like Like x 12
    • Epic Epic x 5
    • List
  3. Lickumms

    Lickumms Acquaintance

    Contributor
    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2022
    Likes Received:
    78
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Location:
    USA
    That is a kind offer. Just not sure how much shipping from Toronto to the USA would for such a heavy large item.
     
  4. k4rstar

    k4rstar Britney fan club president

    Pyrate BWC
    Joined:
    Jun 11, 2016
    Likes Received:
    6,942
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    Probably $40-50. It depends what state you're in. PM me anyway if you're interested.

    Here is a Bottlehead Moreplay I built in May:
    [​IMG]
     
  5. Lickumms

    Lickumms Acquaintance

    Contributor
    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2022
    Likes Received:
    78
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Location:
    USA
    I like that cream color. I was thinking of getting the BeePre 2 down the road for the Kaiju. My Audio-GD Master 9 works as a pre amp and I would be using that to volume control the Kaiju.
     
  6. Ryu

    Ryu Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Oct 5, 2015
    Likes Received:
    480
    Trophy Points:
    93

    There's a beautiful writeup already posted over at https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/elekit-tu8600.5132/ for the 8600 with a buildlog and comments about the quality.

    From the very limited knowledge I have from the Kaiju 300B, I've only heard it's more ideal for headphones and that's with the DC heater kit.

    I think the 8600 is the go-to here, especially if you're gonna be rocking the boutique parts like the Lundahls.

    Speaking from experience of doing SMD diodes on keyboard PCBs and building a Crack + Speedball myself, the 8600 will be much more labor intensive, but most likely still doable. Will just have to work more slowly and triple check your work. Again, double check the buildlog from the link above and try to take your best guess on the difficulty based on your skill and comfort level.

    10/10 would recommend @k4rstar to build it for you if you do go that route. He's a great guy and his work is top notch.
     
  7. Lickumms

    Lickumms Acquaintance

    Contributor
    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2022
    Likes Received:
    78
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Location:
    USA
    Interesting, it doesn't look to hard. Just that it will take me a while to make sure I get good solder joints.
     
  8. Beefy

    Beefy Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2021
    Likes Received:
    1,738
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Canada
    Haven't heard either of these amps. But just wondering if there is any reason why you are only considering the Elekit 8600, and not the 8900? The 8900 is reportedly a much better amp for headphones, gives you the option to play around with different output tubes, has the option for NFB or not. I feel like it gives you more play/tweak options.

    In terms of specs and construction... The fitment and use of amorphous transformers is also much more elegant in the 8900 if you want to go big. And the 8900 has a lower noise floor, but has slightly lower max output of 8W vs 9.2W for the 8600.....
     
  9. Lickumms

    Lickumms Acquaintance

    Contributor
    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2022
    Likes Received:
    78
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Location:
    USA
    I must have miss read the details on the 8900 I thought it was a 2A3 only amp. If it is the improved version of the 8600 I would look at getting the 3900 over the 3600.
     
  10. Beefy

    Beefy Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2021
    Likes Received:
    1,738
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Canada
    I wouldn't say the 8900 could be considered an improved version (except for headphone usage), they are really quite different amps. But, as a DIY product, half the fun is tinkering. And playing with 2A3 and 300B in the same amp is pretty damn neat.

    So, just something to consider.
     
  11. Lickumms

    Lickumms Acquaintance

    Contributor
    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2022
    Likes Received:
    78
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Location:
    USA
    True, tube swapping is one of the main things I love doing.
     
  12. Lickumms

    Lickumms Acquaintance

    Contributor
    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2022
    Likes Received:
    78
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Location:
    USA
    I asked on the Bottlehead forum about the difference between the 2 amps. This is what one of the bottlehead people said.

    "That's a tough question to answer since it's a competitor's product, but I'll try to do my best to give some objective differences from my own perspective.

    The Elekit in a way is more like what we used to sell back in the day. The kit is offered with some budget iron with lots of hints dropped that you should really go for the Lundahl upgrade if at all possible. We did this with our SEX monoblocks and Paramour monoblocks and we worked with Magnequest to create better iron for those pieces. There are some missing dimensions to the specs on those stock Elekit amps that I would imagine are rather drastically improved with the Lundahl bits.

    The schematic for the 8600 is floating around and it has a vastly more complicated power supply than the Kaiju and active biasing circuitry, but the 300B driver is rather simple and multiple stages. I would expect less 120Hz noise making it from the power supply to the speaker terminals. The DC filament supply on this amp is a bridge rectifier and a cap.

    The Kaiju has an incredibly simple power supply, very simple 300B biasing, but a more complicated driver stage, which is just a single triode driving the 300B. The increase in 120Hz noise that you might expect to see at the speaker terminals will be somewhat mitigated by the parallel feed output stage. The (available) DC filament supply is regulated and keeps Jac at EML happy.

    I believe the 8600 with the Lundahl transformers will make more than 8W (maybe 11?), but it also runs pretty high plate voltage. R114/214 on the 8600 are twice the allowable value on the Western Electric published datasheet, and I have experienced this causing problems with Russian 300Bs in a different amplifier in the past, but YMMV and this is something I have run into in many 300B amps. With the 12AX7 input stage, the schematic shows either a 50K or 100K volume pot, and I would strongly advise against running a 100K pot into a 12AX7.

    The Kaiju will make less power and requires a bias adjustment to the driver stage, so I would say it's less user friendly. I think the big advantage to the Kaiju comes if you happen to blow up one of the PC boards, as everything is modular and we can just send out replacement parts pretty easily. I've seen something like this happen from the wrong 9 pin tube being put into the amp, and a repair like that can be done pretty easily by the builder. "

    Basically you need to get all the upgrade parts for the Elekit to be more on par with the Kaiju. Though to get the noise floor of the Elekit you have to get the DC filament upgrade on it.
     
  13. Lickumms

    Lickumms Acquaintance

    Contributor
    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2022
    Likes Received:
    78
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Location:
    USA
    The 8900 with the Lundahl upgrade is $2000. Then caps add 100-500. Plus you have to buy tubes. Making the total 2700-3500.
    The Kaiju with DC is $2200. It comes with tubes and pretty decent caps already. Then extra if you get better caps or different tubes.

    So really it comes down to if you think the ability to use both 2a3 and 300B is worth the extra $500-$1200.
     
  14. animus

    animus Almost "Made"

    Contributor
    Joined:
    Nov 9, 2019
    Likes Received:
    561
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    N/A
    I would avoid the Elekit, Lundahls don't sound great and in general they're pretty dry sounding amps. I mean, there are people out there who like that sound, but you're basically paying extra for a glorified solid state and that's ignoring how expensive (good) 300B and 2A3 tubes are. And realistically speaking, the chance that you're going to be actively swapping tubes in regular listening instead of just rolling them to find a synergy and stopping when you've arrived at the sound you want is not that high, unless you get off on tweaking.

    As for the Kaiju, the 2C51 is far from my favorite sounding input tube but you can definitely make it work with some tricks like using a cathode cap instead of an LED (I know that you can do this with the Crack and the SEX but not sure about the Kaiju). DC heating might be less noisy, but AC heating has a sound to it that makes it worth pursuing in my opinion (see the HF AC heaters in EC amps). Good caps and resistors don't have to be expensive, far from it in fact. And I agree with Sina in the Bottlehead design just being better period. I've seen a couple of his other Bottlehead builds and they're very beautiful, plus you get some special sauce parts courtesy of him that you probably wouldn't get elsewhere.
     
    • Like Like x 3
    • Epic Epic x 1
    • List
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2022
  15. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2015
    Likes Received:
    8,200
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Northwest France
    Didn’t see it mentioned but the Kaiju is a parafeed design. That’s really different from single-ended gapped transformers used in the Elekit.

    Basically any amount of DC in a transformer will magnetically saturate it. To prevent this SE transformers are gapped but this leads to reduced performance. To compensate the transformers need to be bigger and expensive to get good results.

    A parafeed transformer only has AC. Without the risk of saturation the transformers can be made with better materials and less transformer based distortion.

    ECP audio is a major proponent of parafeed design and has a good write up on it:

    http://diy.ecpaudio.com/p/parafeed-tutorial.html
     
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2022
  16. Beefy

    Beefy Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2021
    Likes Received:
    1,738
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Canada
    All I can think reading this thread, once again, is how much I wish Bottlehead would do a big DHT tube amp tweaked specifically for headphones. Bring together all the best aspects of the Mainline, Stereomour and Kaiju.

    Where I'm hesitant on the Elekit for headphones, I'd buy a Bottlehead in a heartbeat. I bet it would sell like hotcakes.
     
    • Like Like x 1
    • Agreed, ditto, +1 Agreed, ditto, +1 x 1
    • List
  17. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2015
    Likes Received:
    8,200
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Northwest France
    I’m pretty sure they did that with the Neothoriator

    https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/bottlehead-neothoriator.5341/
     
  18. RestoredSparda

    RestoredSparda Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Jan 7, 2021
    Likes Received:
    3,638
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    WI
    Too bad it's around 10 grand. Would love to hear it. I know Doc B said it takes a very long time to build.
     
  19. Beefy

    Beefy Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2021
    Likes Received:
    1,738
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Canada
    Yeah, not thinking of anything that elaborate! Closest equivalent might be DNA Stratus in Bottlehead kit form. Or a Stereomour with gain, noisefloor and output impedance tweaked specifically for headphones. Not a MOAR POWAH amp for speakers, HE-6, K1000, Susvara, etc., but something suitable for Focal, Audeze, Grado.

    [EDIT] I see now there is actually a thread on the Bottlehead forums pleading for this very amplifier. Maybe I should throw my voice in there, and let this thread get back on topic! :D
     
    • Like Like x 1
    • Agreed, ditto, +1 Agreed, ditto, +1 x 1
    • List
  20. Lickumms

    Lickumms Acquaintance

    Contributor
    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2022
    Likes Received:
    78
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Location:
    USA
    How do you paint the top of the plate with out getting paint bleed on the bottom plate? Do you just tape over all holes on the back of the plate? I
     

Share This Page