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The exterior build is nothing extraordinary, more or less your average budget Marantz player. The front panel is plastic and shows traces of discoloration on its outer edges. The layout of the buttons is good and the display is quite nice, though a bit hard to read across the room. This is not a real problem if you, like me, listen in the near field. The top cover, the one you will be removing often, is made out of thin metal sheet and rattles readily when tapped. You will want to dampen this in one way or another. I used two solid blocks of maple, one placed above the drive mechanism and the other about mid way from each side. I find solid maple blocks to work better than sand bags, lead or other weights.

I also used three "Tightropes" to further tame vibration and chassis resonance. I find these excellent footers to be mandatory if you want to hear what this player can really do. And finally, I dampened the tubes with a pair of very effective HAL-O #9 Vacuum Tube Damping Instruments.

Greetingz Earthlingz! ... We are Tuboidz from the planet Amperex

I ordered my unit from Kevin Deal of Upscale Audio. Let me just say that Kevin is a pleasure to work with; he is knowledgeable, patient and helpful. Everything arrived double boxed and safe and sound. My unit was equipped with the optional 24Bit/96kHz Upsampling board. I also ordered the "De Mat" CD stabilizer and a matched pair of Siemens 7308 NOS tubes. Total price (with shipping to Canada): $1020.00.

I decided to skip the power cord opting to make one myself, which I did with a length of Belden 19364 (i.e. the Asylum Power Cord). I also decided not to get the Tjoeb Shoes due to an ample supply of different footers in my own collection. I did not order any of the Op-amp Kits because installing the Upsampling board overrides the Op-amps altogether and makes them unnecessary.

My intent with this player is not to walk you through all and every tweak available for it and report how each changes the sound. Others have done this and you may find links to such reviews at the Upscale Audio site. My intent is to present this player with a set of options and tweaks that best worked for me.

Performance

What follows are selections from my email exchange with Kevin Deal. They'll do just fine as an introduction to this player's performance and my tube findings.

11-Dec-2002

Hi Kevin,
Just a quick note: I have received the player on Monday - everything works fine. Right out of the box the player sounds good. I have it on continuous play for two days now allowing it to burn-in a bit. I will take a closer listen in the following weeks. I've yet to try the Siemens tubes, I first want to try the stock ones. I'll send you an update in a couple of weeks.

02-Jan-2003

Hi Kevin,
After three or so weeks my AH! Njoe Tjoeb 4000 (with the installed Upsampler) has settled down and opened up wonderfully! I'm very pleased with my purchase and I plan to do a review on my site soon. I think the product represents great value and unlike other players it's tweakable right out of the box!

My tube story:

I first tried the player with the tubes that were already installed and after a week of use I found myself saying: Hey, these standard Philips JAN 6922 tubes sound great. But I gave credit to the wrong tubes! To my surprise when I went to replace them with the Siemens 7308s I realized that the installed tubes were actually the Russian 6H23s! I understand that you have nine different types of 6H23s and that these are the ones that really sound good. Well, I second that - in fact I prefer these "special" 6H23s over the steel pin Siemens 7308s! Initially the 7308s sounded a bit thin and edgy (perhaps even noisy). I thought two or three days of burn-in would help, and it did - they got sweeter but they still sounded a bit thin in comparison to the "special" 6H23s. So out went the more expensive 7308s and back in went the 6H23s, given their modest price they're really a supper deal.

Kevin, I would like to do something with my steel pin Siemens 7308s that don't quite match up with my system. I've got about 3 days of continuous use on them so I haven't put much mileage on them. Perhaps I could trade them in and up towards something more special from your cookie jar. Any suggestions and recommendations are welcomed.

Thank you.
Boris

The Ah! Njoe Tjoeb 4000 CD Player