I often think about buying one of their diy kits. Nice to hear some feedback on the brand.
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Music related purchase? Behringer Swing midi keyboard. A small present for myself. Two reasons, one to learn a little piano as I have never tried a non string instrument and the other because I mess around with VCV Rack off and on and doing so is super hard without a keyboard.
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Congrats on the DSHA! And yes dynamics with it are very DAC dependent, it sounds great with Yggy OG/A2. Christian has or had OG/A2 in his chain with it too, I give the combo a big 
.
Also the amp is not a “one trick pony”, I like it a lot with all my ZMF dynamics but as usual YMMV. I had this amp and V550 at the same time, and decided this one is my “keeper” even though I think the Vio is a great amp and far more versatile. But the DSHA-3FN has a greater degree of “naturalness” and emotional connection to the music for me. Plus it is simply fabulous with the Utopia! 
(2020 version in my case)
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Bought some new shoes for the DeVores. Surprising amount of sound I was leaving on the table without them, I’ll write a bit of my impression on them in the vibration and isolation thread this weekend.
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I couldn’t recommend any of their products more, its absolute top notch, from design, to materials, to instructions, and the most important, they sound breathtaking. They make bottlehead kits look like novice stuff.
If you like this kind of project couldn’t recommend more.
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Interesting. If you have time / inclination would love to read a more detailed review!
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Honestly I don’t know that much since im new myself to elekit, but heres what I do know, as brief as possible.
Theres 2 ways to go about Elekit, to get them pre-built as a speaker amp or to buy the kit to build the speaker amp yourself.
Dont get their dacs, cheapear dac/amps, headphone amps, those are meant more as easy to build educational products, they dont sound good at an audiophile level. Also their optional DAC module is not good, just use an external DAC.
Also keep in mind that most of these have headphone jacks, again they put those there because they could, they sound quite bad at an audiophile level, these amps are designed to provide amazing Speaker Sound, preferably with somewhat higher sensitivity speakers, which are relatively common in mid fi, if you have a set of speakers its probably above 87db/mw which should be enough to get great sound out of these amps. (You might need more info on tube amp to speaker pairings if you don’t already know, just ask, rule of thumb is easier to drive speakers get better results, but there’s also some beefy tubes, so it depends).
Tube Depot is their official distributor in the US, I think you might be from Europe, they have several distributors there! Which means you can go either way, build your own, or look on the second hand market to get an amazing sounding tube amp for your speakers for cheap (Elekits really do sound way above their cost, specially if they include you some nice tubes).
The kits are super well made, all of them, the instructions are fool proof, and everything is made with the user being able to make things right in mind… I had the complete opposite experience when first building my BHC+S, the manual said it could be easily be built in an afternoon without any prior experience, bullshit.
Since im not a hobbyist type of guy everything from the painting to the soldering was very stressfull, and it took me like 20 hours without the speedball, it requiered some soldering techniques not for begginers, so I had to learn on the fly but I learned incorrectly because they dont even tell you to use solder paste or flux, nor any advice on cable managing.
Before we continue, Elekit has some sort of educational mission to their brand, so most of their models can be run in several electronic configurations so you can learn and hear the difference for example between triode, pentode and ultra linear connections; of course everything is explained beautifully and its an easy swap, most users would just pick the best sounding one for their model and leave it there.
A bit more of the same goes with the space inside the aluminum boxes, they left enough space in case you wanted to upgrade to larger capacitors, and you can pick between installing a standard transformer or a much higher quality Lundahl one (or two) for upgraded sound.
Now to finish this post with some very useful info, here are the exact models you should look into:
Elekit TU8185, frankly Id skip this one and any other kits bellow this, reason being this is more aimed at beginners getting into DIY Kits, while its possible to get good sound out of this one it would requiere very specific speakers and for just a bit more money you get to the real THICK, ELEGANT, sounding kits.
TU8200R I think this might be the best one to start, its their most popular kit for a reason, its just been very recently discontinued but some dealers may still have some left. It sounds killer for its price, just put it in ultra linear mode and get those JUICY 8WPC, It sounds great with stock tubes, but I put in some mullard cv4003 drivers and Tung Sol EL34, with the right speakers that have high enough sensitivity, they start putting some very expensive speaker amps to shame.
Since these amps have many modes they can work with, they can also accept a wide variety of tubes, and these are precisely the kind of amps that get their sound signature straight from the tubes used. So you can get the signature you want!
(Again you can always ask for help to see which tubes will sound the way you like, and which distributors have them, at least here in America).
Just as the production of the TU8200R ended, so did the great tube preamp with phono stage TU8500 you could stack it with, good thing is both have been upgraded a lot, bad news is theyre quite a bit more expensive.
If youd like to get a really nice phono stage tube preamp, id highly recommend their new version TU8550, if you dont need it or already got a nice phono pre you can skip it, however, the new version of the TU8200R, Called TU8400 is designed work a lot better with a nice preamp.
The TU8400 is a Beast, now compatible with way more tube types, you can get it up to 10WPC using KT170, 8.6WPC using KT88, and like the previous version, 8WPC with EL34.
Like I mentioned before, you can pick a regular transformer for your Elekits, or you can go the Lundahl way, very expensive upgrade, but very good sounding. The matter of fact is that even without the Lundahl you are getting amazing sound and value, and sometimes spending that extra money on tubes can result in better sound. Lundahl is a luxury not a necessity, but be sure to get it if your wallet allows.
To not make this any longer as it already got past what I wanted to say, they have their 3 top of the line models for you to pick, just amazing value for the money.
Elekit TU-8850SE - This is BIG BOY version of the TU8400, as it can reach 16WPC in Ultra Linear mode, and also compatible with the same variety of tubes, with more power.
Elekit TU-8900 - 300B/2A3, this is one of the cheapest 300B and 2A3 tube amps in the market, not to be taken lightly, as it can hang around the big boys no problem.
Elekit TU-8888 Monoblock, yup they do monoblocks too.
Well thats about it, cya.
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One more thing, I think its a massive shame that the TU8200R was discontinued since it was SO MUCH cheaper to build than any of the models currently available
I feel like having to put up the money for a TU8400 is gate keepy and I know its not intentional, just the way the market is
Had I never gotten this TU8200 I would have never tried out Elekit since the price of entry is way too high now.
Cant wait to upgrade to the Lundahl TU8400 now that im already initiated
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Great write up! Thanks! They are indeed readily available in the EU and are one of the kits on my maybe list - which is why I was very much interested in the opinion of someone here on it.
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Since it seems like you really like the kit building aspect of Elekit, and there are many distributors in the EU, maybe you could try emailing all of them to see if they got some leftover TU8200 in their warehouse or something like that, I dont imagine that you want to drop the TU8400 bucks on your first kit.
3 weeks ago Tube Depot still had one last TU8200 kit.
Anyway I hope you can try any of their kits, it really changed my perspective on both kits and speaker tube amps.
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There are a few floating about yes! I’ve been waiting to see what the 8400 is like though as it has several improvements that I personally wanted over the 8200. particularly that, depending on the tubes you choose the 8400 can be a decent headphone amp and has several improvements taken from their more expensive kits.
The 8400 is still cheaper than a Bottlehead over here in the EU plus on the diy forums the BH models are seen as… hmm… a little cheeky in that if you know where to look you can find and use the old schematics the BH Crack is based on. I think that overlooks the fact that not everyone wants to spend hours looking through posts and websites about amp schematics to find scans of ancient magazine articles - or spec and buy individual components.
I haven’t yet decided whether to do a kit or recreate an old amp yet - it’s a problem for future me as I still have two amps and a mixer in various planning stages keeping me busy!
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I like how passionate you are about this and you are absolutely right
The TU8200 JUST doesnt work for headphones
While the TU8400 can work a lot better, to make it sounds specially good on headphones would requiere a lot of trial and error.
It is possible to get great results for headphones but still a very tough task. If you feel like you are up to the task by all means go for it.
Id love to recommend another kit brand thats specialized on headphone amps but sadly I couldnt find any.
As for bottlehead I recommend you to shy away from them, IMO the crack + SB is their magnum opus and they never came close since.
Thats just my biased opinion, I really dont like the quality of the components they send, thats why modded bottleheads end up a lot better, what theyre good at is making schematics.
I think their other good headphone amp is the Mainline 1.1, problem being the same, crappy parts, but with enough knowledge to mod it and getting your own parts it could make for a really good amp, but just seems like too difficult of a project and probably not worth it.
@Gothique im quite curious, what headphones do you plan to use with the amp and do you have any tube configuration in mind yet?
Edit: sorry I just read thats a problem for your future self
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Thanks! I find amplifier circuits fascinating. Probably why I keep building things hah.
That is my perception too, admittedly from reading forum reviews rather than personal experience. The Elekit amps interest me as I find their design execution interesting and it’s nice to build a kit before striking out into random pcbs and internet sourced designs.
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The only warning I’d give with the elekit amps is they are complex compared to something like a BHC.
The assembly is straight forwards, but you do have to pay attention, my 8150SE had intermittent drop out on one channel when I completed it. It took me a month of fiddling with it, before I identified the issue. Entirely my fault I missed a solder connection on the PCB. I swear I looked at the joint 20 times before I saw it.
The headphone out on the 8150 isn’t “ideal”, and the power sections also aren’t very headphone friendly, if you intend to use very high sensitivity headphones.
Having said that they are well designed amps, mine came with translated instructions that were very thorough, and they include a full schematic which ended up being invaluable for debugging it.
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Herb Riechert from Stereophile is a huge Elekit fan and has stated on multiple occasions that three thousands dollars spent in a high quality parts Elekit build will rival most $15K amps out there.
It’s on my bucket list as a retirement project to take on one of them as a build project.
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Agreed. By the time I tackle one I will have built a few more complex amps so I think that will work out well
Been there done that too!
They do have a very solid reputation don’t they? That’s what keeps them on my short list.
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@Gothique when i was looking at DHT amps a lot if the DIY forums had tons of info on the Elekits. IIRC the 8400 seemed to be a favorite. But tons of into on those forums with mods and tweaks etc etc.
Happy building, cant wait for another of your build threads.
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I have read before from several people that no Elekit Model is Ideal for headphone use, but that was some time ago before the TU8400 existed, it has some different features thay may or may not affect the headphone out.
The TU8400 unlike every other model specifies that its made to be used along a preamplifer, I assume for mainly noise reduction and attenuation but I find it curious that this is the only model that states this.
I always thought Elekit was overhyped by its fans, I knew it would be very good, but not this good
I didnt think this degree of sound quality per dollar was even possible.
In my case its on a much lower scale than your example, but said value holds true, my $850 kit for the TU8200 can very easily outperform $2-3k amps from Margules and Cayin.
@Polygonhell I think you may be the right guy to ask this question to:
Im definitely getting a TU8400 for myself, the only question I have is about the preamp itself, Elekits own TU8550 stacks and seems to be built to synergize with the TU8400, But im not using phono stage at all nor all those inputs.
I wonder what results Id get from a nice regular preamp like the one in my exogal comet plus.
Anyway if the stack is worth it id get the stack, I just dont know how much of a difference does it make.
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Thanks! I have finally everything I need for a couple of builds now. I was saving for an oscilloscope so I could properly test while building and I finally found a great deal on a decent starting one last week. Should arrive soon then I can build something.
As I read it they have adapted the design of the older higher end models for this new amp. From what I can find, it seems to be a more focused design, with less complex gain staging so giving up some power and going for more control instead? More old school, rather than an all in one integrated amp compared to the 8200. So I think this represents a shift in their thinking about what their market is looking for and a future general refresh of all their kits.
They also released a new preamp kit specifically for pairing with the TU-8400, the TU- 8450
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They likely all have the same issue, the output transformers are designed for 8 ohms, and there is just a resistor network to match to higher impedance. They’d probably be better just driving the headphones from the 8 ohm out TBH.
And as I said they aren’t going to be noise free on sensitive headphones because of the PSU design/packaging.
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