As some of you long-time ASR members know, I am an 80 y/o retired American expatriate who lives in Boquete, a small tourist and farming town in the mountains of Western Panama's Chiriqui Province. I have been into audio since my high school days when I lived on the south side of Chicago just north of Marquette Park. I started reading HiFi Magazine in the late 1950's, and my father bought me my first amplifier - a used Bell 6L6 monaural PP integrated amp in 1958. I was also an usher for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1957 and 1958 - when Fritz Reiner was conductor, and the classic RCA stereo recordings of the CSO were being done. I have the 63 CD collection in digital format, and can actually listen to some concerts where I was present.
I have owned many tube and SS components in the 60+ years since those days - Eico, Grommes, Dynaco, McIntosh, Adcom, Carver, Tektron, Supratek, Bryston, JBL, Wharfedale, ADS, Apogee, and more. I am an objectivist with respect to sonic differences between audio electronics, and a subjectivist with respect to preferences based on psychology, personality, artistic taste and other attributes not related to actual sound. Therefore, at age 80, I just ordered a Yarland EL34 Class A push-pull vacuum tube amplifier that looks gorgeous to my taste, and will hopefully provide many, many hours of pleasure as I listen to a wide range of music from internet radio plus my own collection of 36K MP3s. (Stream-ripping for personal offline listening (essentially time-shifting) is legal - selling or giving away tunes is not.)
Yarland is (was?) a Chinese company that designed and manufactured beautiful single-ended and push-pull "exposed tube-on-top" amplifiers with black wrinkle-finish or gloss black, and sculpted bubinga or zebrano wood front panels that some people (like me) love, and others hate. Considering my taste in art and design, love of eotic wood - and having turned bubinga and zebrano on my lathe in the past, I think that these are among the most beautiful tube amplifiers ever made. (They appear to have been inspired by Italy's Unison Research amplifiers.)
Yarland was founded in 1996 in Wenzhou, a coastal city in Zhejiang province in China. The company had two amplifier product lines, the standard Yarland and premium Ariand. (I've read that Yarland means “elegant” in Chinese.) Mr. Daikai, the CEO and Director, designed the Yarland and Ariand amplifiers. All transformers were wound in house. Mr Daikai was said to be a perfectionist, and continually made design changes and improvements to his amplifiers, striving to have high quality while keeping cost and prices reasonably low. It took a bit of internet sleuthing, but I actually found a short undated article with some photos [LINK] at the 6Moons audio website about a visit by a Roland Breteler to the Yarland factory in China.
The Chinese and Italian Yarland websites are now gone, so I assume that the company no longer exists. Most resellers seem to be out of stock, but China HiFi Audio, where I ordered mine yesterday, still has about 16 amplifiers from the six of twenty models that they list. I paid the $764 cost of the amplifier plus $331 for shipping to my Miami forwarder ($1,065 total) with PayPal for protection, and received a quick acknowledgement from PayPal and China HiFi Audio. Within 24 hours, I received a personal email stating that since I live in a country with 120v mains, would I like a free step up transformer power supply, which saved me the $100. That will cover forwarding to me in Panama, which includes customs clearance.
The below excerpt from a review of an Yarland EL84 Class A PP amp is one of a few I located, with most being very positive, but a couple complaining about quality. Yarland amplifiers were apparently fairly popular in Europe (for a boutique product line), with European distributors doing some upgrades and tweaking before selling them to consumers.
The amp is self-biasing, and switchable between triode and pentode modes. And it has a pair of stereo balanced XLR inputs!
There seems to be some errors and confusion with respect to the model number. It is listed on several websites as an FV-34B-S, but the photo of the back of the amp shows a sticker with the Model # Ariand FV-34B-V.
The website listing says the front wood panel is zebrano, but the photos show a bubinga panel. Either one is fine by me.
I have heard enough complaints about the Chinese tubes that come with some amplifiers, so I will order some good quality, budget priced tubes which will be ready to install when the amp arrives.
I have owned many tube and SS components in the 60+ years since those days - Eico, Grommes, Dynaco, McIntosh, Adcom, Carver, Tektron, Supratek, Bryston, JBL, Wharfedale, ADS, Apogee, and more. I am an objectivist with respect to sonic differences between audio electronics, and a subjectivist with respect to preferences based on psychology, personality, artistic taste and other attributes not related to actual sound. Therefore, at age 80, I just ordered a Yarland EL34 Class A push-pull vacuum tube amplifier that looks gorgeous to my taste, and will hopefully provide many, many hours of pleasure as I listen to a wide range of music from internet radio plus my own collection of 36K MP3s. (Stream-ripping for personal offline listening (essentially time-shifting) is legal - selling or giving away tunes is not.)
Yarland is (was?) a Chinese company that designed and manufactured beautiful single-ended and push-pull "exposed tube-on-top" amplifiers with black wrinkle-finish or gloss black, and sculpted bubinga or zebrano wood front panels that some people (like me) love, and others hate. Considering my taste in art and design, love of eotic wood - and having turned bubinga and zebrano on my lathe in the past, I think that these are among the most beautiful tube amplifiers ever made. (They appear to have been inspired by Italy's Unison Research amplifiers.)
Yarland was founded in 1996 in Wenzhou, a coastal city in Zhejiang province in China. The company had two amplifier product lines, the standard Yarland and premium Ariand. (I've read that Yarland means “elegant” in Chinese.) Mr. Daikai, the CEO and Director, designed the Yarland and Ariand amplifiers. All transformers were wound in house. Mr Daikai was said to be a perfectionist, and continually made design changes and improvements to his amplifiers, striving to have high quality while keeping cost and prices reasonably low. It took a bit of internet sleuthing, but I actually found a short undated article with some photos [LINK] at the 6Moons audio website about a visit by a Roland Breteler to the Yarland factory in China.
The Chinese and Italian Yarland websites are now gone, so I assume that the company no longer exists. Most resellers seem to be out of stock, but China HiFi Audio, where I ordered mine yesterday, still has about 16 amplifiers from the six of twenty models that they list. I paid the $764 cost of the amplifier plus $331 for shipping to my Miami forwarder ($1,065 total) with PayPal for protection, and received a quick acknowledgement from PayPal and China HiFi Audio. Within 24 hours, I received a personal email stating that since I live in a country with 120v mains, would I like a free step up transformer power supply, which saved me the $100. That will cover forwarding to me in Panama, which includes customs clearance.
The below excerpt from a review of an Yarland EL84 Class A PP amp is one of a few I located, with most being very positive, but a couple complaining about quality. Yarland amplifiers were apparently fairly popular in Europe (for a boutique product line), with European distributors doing some upgrades and tweaking before selling them to consumers.
Now to the details of my amplifier, which I should receive in 2-3 weeks.Reprinted from HiFi January, 2011 Review by Ken Kessler:
Looks Italian, but it’s made in China and tweaked in the UK – is the defies-belief Yarland FV-34B line-level integrated valve amp the best £499 you’ll ever spend?
Conclusion: Both the editor and i had this pegged as a far costlier unit – at least a grand in the light of its build and performance. We were blissfully, deliriously wrong. the unit sells for so little not just because it’s Chinese, but because you buy it direct. the net result is an amazingly quiet, stable, punchy and musical amplifier for the price of a decent bottle of masseto. As an entry to the world of valves, it’s perfect.
The amp is self-biasing, and switchable between triode and pentode modes. And it has a pair of stereo balanced XLR inputs!
There seems to be some errors and confusion with respect to the model number. It is listed on several websites as an FV-34B-S, but the photo of the back of the amp shows a sticker with the Model # Ariand FV-34B-V.
The website listing says the front wood panel is zebrano, but the photos show a bubinga panel. Either one is fine by me.
I have heard enough complaints about the Chinese tubes that come with some amplifiers, so I will order some good quality, budget priced tubes which will be ready to install when the amp arrives.
- The driver tube is a single 6N3, which is a Chinese version of the 5670. I just ordered two GE JAN NOS 5670 tubes on eBay for $4.79 each
- The Input tubes are listed as 6SN8, which does not exist. There is a 6N8S which is a Russian military versio of the 6SN7. If they are 6SN7 or equivalent, I will order matched a pair of Electro Harmonix 6SN7EH from Viva Tubes for $40.
- The output tubes are EL34, and I will order a matched quad of the equivalent Electro Harmonix 6CA7EH, also from Viva Tubes, for $79.
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