Yaqin MC-84L Tube Stereo Amplifier Review

[early rejecter]

Most likely I've misinterpreted your meaning. If so apologies.

No worries; I probably wasn’t clear. It was a comment on your assertion that:

Another term for this is being "woke", you want to "feel" that you are somehow cool or superior or vituous because your gear is "diffferent" in someway or retro or whatever.

That strikes me as a rather uncharitable view of the motivations of people whose interests might not wholly align with yours, one that is not infrequently expressed here at ASR in reference to anyone who isn’t 100% committed to 100% transparency 100% of the time. From this thread, see also:

Why tubes? … It ain't even about much more than some personal statement about you.

Is it not possible for people to simply and genuinely enjoy the achievements of now obsolete technology, or to find their listening sessions enhanced by particular visual aesthetics of outdated equipment that they’re attracted to? Is it really all down to a pathetic desire to feel superior to other listeners?

Probably 80% or more of my listening is on and with ASR-approved devices and media and it’s great, but on a Saturday morning I love flipping through my record collection built up over the last few decades and putting on music without looking at a screen. I won’t defend the quality of cassettes, but it’s fun to put on an old mix tape I’d made for my wife in our dating days, or a recording of one of my college radio shows. Disassembling a 50 year old basket case Dual turntable, figuring out the workings of the ingenious automatic functions, and completely rebuilding it into a nice alternate source for my office system was incredibly satisfying and made for some relaxing evenings after work. Fidelity is an admirable goal, but I don’t see the harm in occasionally sacrificing some for other things that bring happiness.

It’s possible that I’ve been fooling myself, and the pleasure I’ve gotten from these activities is actually no more than a subconscious feeling of superiority, but if that’s the case what’s to keep me from assuming that the pursuit of higher and higher fidelity, even beyond audibility, is likewise in service of that same feeling?

 

[johny_2000]

Unlike pure marketing use of the name, this new company does have the original tooling, manufacturing documents, licenses, etc.

Right now they are just making the 300B but they are adding more tubes.

Well, they could do much better if they expanded their product portfolio to include all other audio related vacuum tubes, including those used in preamplifier stages.

 

[Blumlein 88]

EMP immunity is the military advantage. Audio advantage in case of EMP would be limited. You would need the following; all tube preamp - including tube phono, tube power amp, a belt drive turntable with an AC motor, a gas generator(not an inverter style but old school spinning at your mains frequency) and speakers. Then you could enjoy some tunes until you run out of gas or die from radiation exposure.
How's that for irony - vinyl enthusiasts with truly old school tube electronics (tube rectifiers required) - could die "happy" in case of nuclear war.

Actually you could have a complete duplicate backup system never turned on. After the blast pull it out of Faraday cage storage and keep listening. You'll still need the generator.

 

[olieb]

Is it not possible for people to simply and genuinely enjoy the achievements of now obsolete technology, or to find their listening sessions enhanced by particular visual aesthetics of outdated equipment that they’re attracted to? Is it really all down to a pathetic desire to feel superior to other listeners?

Probably 80% or more of my listening is on and with ASR-approved devices and media and it’s great, but on a Saturday morning I love flipping through my record collection built up over the last few decades and putting on music without looking at a screen. I won’t defend the quality of cassettes, but it’s fun to put on an old mix tape I’d made for my wife in our dating days, or a recording of one of my college radio shows. Disassembling a 50 year old basket case Dual turntable, figuring out the workings of the ingenious automatic functions, and completely rebuilding it into a nice alternate source for my office system was incredibly satisfying and made for some relaxing evenings after work. Fidelity is an admirable goal, but I don’t see the harm in occasionally sacrificing some for other things that bring happiness.

I totally understand the steampunk nostalgia and mechanical finesses of old gear. To dismantle or even repair that stuff is an awesome experience and a lampifier with its orange glow and amplification just by wire and vacuum is a nice object.
I don't see many here that would deny that.
The differences arise when the qualities of sound production are discussed. It is part of ASR genome to point out the flaws and there are others who want to insist on the "great sound" of vinyl and tubes. And so the dispute takes its course.
It is not about the personal affection and choice and enjoyment (whatever floats your boat) but about the claims in respect to sound reproduction, at least that is my perception.

 

[early rejecter]

The differences arise when the qualities of sound production are discussed. It is part of ASR genome to point out the flaws and there are others who want to insist on the "great sound" of vinyl and tubes. And so the dispute takes its course.

Absolutely — I’ve no issue with that.

It is not about the personal affection and choice and enjoyment (whatever floats your boat) but about the claims in respect to sound reproduction, at least that is my perception.

If you take a look at the quoted text I was replying to though, it had nothing to do with sound reproduction or claims thereof; it was an unflattering psychological profile that’s cropped up here before (without justification to my mind).

In any case I don’t mean to derail the conversation; just seemed like a couple of cheap shots that warranted calling out.

 

[GXAlan]

Well, they could do much better if they expanded their product portfolio to include all other audio related vacuum tubes, including those used in preamplifier stages.

The 12AX7 project from WE is definitely behind schedule. They were planning to launch it Summer 2023 after the article notes that previous launch targets have slipped and that WE bought the tooling as far back as 2006.

They do want to sell a premium version of the 12ax7 and something like the 300B has Graphene coating on it, so it’s next generation design even though it’s still an anachronism. The main role is in the music production not reproduction side though.

The owner of WE apparently is a successful businessman who after having success in some sort of normal business decided to try to restart tube production.

 

[AndreaT]

Wow, nice piece of nostalgic manufacture! Is there a revival building steam engines, too?
How much is a pair of those boutique tubes in their boutique boxes, inside their boutique wooden shrine?

A paltry $ 1,499 for a matched pair

 

[mmuetst]

Now we have a reson to Buy a Carver tube amp

 

[biker29]

View attachment 400642

Thanks for the testing though @amirm... I needed a good laugh.

Pics;

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View attachment 400632

Dynaco
JSmith

Two different amps are shown in these pictures. Look closely at the differences in the wiring. One amp is missing the B+ voltage power supply caps. Also the power supply does not follow good design practice for the B+ voltage. For example the are no resistors in power supply to form RC filter circuit and no bypass caps. Low quality tubes (very likely) will also degrade performance. Dynaco st70 is the only tube amp in the list shown in post #6 (reproduction costing $3500 as I recall). Sinad of 60 would be fair to good for a tube amp. The twisted wiring is used to reduce Mains hum.

 

[Ajax]

No worries; I probably wasn’t clear. It was a comment on your assertion that:

"Another term for this is being "woke", you want to "feel" that you are somehow cool or superior or vituous because your gear is "diffferent" in someway or retro or whatever."

That strikes me as a rather uncharitable view of the motivations of people whose interests might not wholly align with yours, one that is not infrequently expressed here at ASR in reference to anyone who isn’t 100% committed to 100% transparency 100% of the time.

My comments were no doubt unecessarily harsh, however, I stand by them as I am sick of the BS being sprouted in audio today. Too many manufactures play on people's desire to "feel good" by producing exotic looking gear that costs a fortune but adds no value.

My beef is with mis leading advertising and the numerous exxperts magazine reviews, which are total nonsense and misleading at the very least - $5,000 power cords, $2,000 speakers cables and $20,000 exotic turntables and glowing tube amps and all the other BS gear, which in no way enhances the reproduction of music.

FYI my all time favourite piece of gear was a Linn Sondek LP12 turntable I bought in London when I was travelling from Aus in 1983. Cost me much much more than I could afford. But that was in the past and IMO at that time it was the best you could get. Through the work of Amir, amongst others, we now know that we don't have to endure financial hardship to get "the best", however, manufacturers are still producing exorbitant gear that adds no value, except to look funky, and really has no purpose into today's world except to provide the purchaser with bragging rights.

This site is all about finding excellent gear at reasonable prices through measuring i.e. to take advantage of advances in technology and sort the wheat from the chaff.

 

[Bob from Florida]

Two different amps are shown in these pictures. Look closely at the differences in the wiring. One amp is missing the B+ voltage power supply caps. Also the power supply does not follow good design practice for the B+ voltage. For example the are no resistors in power supply to form RC filter circuit and no bypass caps. Low quality tubes (very likely) will also degrade performance. Dynaco st70 is the only tube amp in the list shown in post #6 (reproduction costing $3500 as I recall). Sinad of 60 would be fair to good for a tube amp. The twisted wiring is used to reduce Mains hum.

It’s the same amp. The B+ caps were unsoldered from the board so the board could be pulled out.

 

[solderdude]

Folks must be very tolerant of noise and distortion out there!

Yep, I think many people are very tolerant for distortion when playing music.

Output resistance measurements (on the different taps as the 8ohm seems to have the feedback) would also have been informative.

Love the dedicated power supply for the blue LED ....

Does anyone know what an Amp like this actually sounds like - completely subjective - is it "tubey warmth" or hissy distortion and fuzzy clipping?

Since Amir forgot to post his listening experience ... (my emphasis)
from: https://www.audiokarma.org/forums/i...-el84-anyone-have-this-some-questions.289241/

3. YAQIN MC-84L 6P14 x4 Class A Vacuum Tube Integrated Amplifier​

check latest price

Pros:

• A very elegant looking device
• The sound quality is awesome
• Made to a very high standard
• Lots of positive reviews about this

Cons:

• We are a little close to 500 bucks
• You do have to work to get the best out of this

The elegance of the YAQIN MC-84L 6P14 x4 Class A Vacuum Tube Integrated Amplifier cannot be understated. I really like the wood grain effect this one has on the sides. Now I know that chances are this will be tidied away somewhere, but I do like the effort they have made with the design. The current asking price for this is currently $469.00 which is a little close to our 500bucks limit, but I do feel that the value for this is not bad at all. If you read up on what this is made with, it is designed with a very “Japanese”mindset and they love their audio crystal clear.

This little device does give you some very rich sound. I am sure there is some breaking in time here, but I found the sound to be very pleasing to my ears right from the start. I tell you Brett Michaels sounded like he was singing to me! In all seriousness, though I actually tested this with two sets of speakers, a higher end Klipsch set and also a more modest and older set of Sony speakers. There was a clear difference so I would say that in order to get the best sound out of this you need to have a solid set of speakers. Which to be fair is not the worst problem in the world now, is it? So, while the sound is great (as the design is very clever) you will have to tinker a bit to get the best sound possible.

What Other People Are Saying?​

On Amazon, there are plenty of glowing reviews for this. However, I did also find a video showcase over on YouTube. There is no “review” on this video, but it does give you an idea of the sound quality that you are going to be getting by using this. It does sound great so make sure you give this video a watch along with checking out those Amazon reviews.

I know we all want to be as below that 500 bucks price tag as possible, but I do feel that this YAQIN MC-84L 6P14 x4 Class A Vacuum Tube Integrated Amplifier is well worth the money. It has a lot of style so if you want it out in the open that is great. It is the sound that that really made me fall in love with this thing. I can see why so many people love this. Just make sure you know that while it is good, getting the best sound does require some work from you.

 

[JeremyFife]

Yep, I think many people are very tolerant for distortion when playing music.

Output resistance measurements (on the different taps as the 8ohm seems to have the feedback) would also have been informative.

Love the dedicated power supply for the blue LED ....


Since Amir forgot to post his listening experience ... (my emphasis)
from: https://www.audiokarma.org/forums/i...-el84-anyone-have-this-some-questions.289241/

3. YAQIN MC-84L 6P14 x4 Class A Vacuum Tube Integrated Amplifier​

check latest price

Pros:

• A very elegant looking device
• The sound quality is awesome
• Made to a very high standard
• Lots of positive reviews about this

Cons:

• We are a little close to 500 bucks
• You do have to work to get the best out of this

The elegance of the YAQIN MC-84L 6P14 x4 Class A Vacuum Tube Integrated Amplifier cannot be understated. I really like the wood grain effect this one has on the sides. Now I know that chances are this will be tidied away somewhere, but I do like the effort they have made with the design. The current asking price for this is currently $469.00 which is a little close to our 500bucks limit, but I do feel that the value for this is not bad at all. If you read up on what this is made with, it is designed with a very “Japanese”mindset and they love their audio crystal clear.

This little device does give you some very rich sound. I am sure there is some breaking in time here, but I found the sound to be very pleasing to my ears right from the start. I tell you Brett Michaels sounded like he was singing to me! In all seriousness, though I actually tested this with two sets of speakers, a higher end Klipsch set and also a more modest and older set of Sony speakers. There was a clear difference so I would say that in order to get the best sound out of this you need to have a solid set of speakers. Which to be fair is not the worst problem in the world now, is it? So, while the sound is great (as the design is very clever) you will have to tinker a bit to get the best sound possible.

What Other People Are Saying?​

On Amazon, there are plenty of glowing reviews for this. However, I did also find a video showcase over on YouTube. There is no “review” on this video, but it does give you an idea of the sound quality that you are going to be getting by using this. It does sound great so make sure you give this video a watch along with checking out those Amazon reviews.

I know we all want to be as below that 500 bucks price tag as possible, but I do feel that this YAQIN MC-84L 6P14 x4 Class A Vacuum Tube Integrated Amplifier is well worth the money. It has a lot of style so if you want it out in the open that is great. It is the sound that that really made me fall in love with this thing. I can see why so many people love this. Just make sure you know that while it is good, getting the best sound does require some work from you.

Lol, thanks - irrefutable evidence that it "sounds great".
I'm joking btw, but fun to read anyway. Thanks.

 

[IanRoberts]

That multi tone graph makes me wanna plug my guitar into it.

 

[Jimmyblues1959]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Yaqin MC-84L Stereo Tube amplifier. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $600 on Amazon.
View attachment 400615
The picture doesn't do justice to the nice design of this amplifier. The transformer case in the back nicely contrasts with the chrome parts. The latter does make the labels hard to read though when looking from above:
View attachment 400616
One set of binding posts is available for 4 ohm and the other, 8 ohm. Seeing how speakers don't have constant impedance, nor are advertised correctly as such, I feel bad for people trying to figure out which posts to use (common criticism for all such amplifiers). Let's see how it performs.

There is a headphone jack in the back which I did not test.

Yaqin MC-84L Stereo Tube Amplifier Measurements
For all but 8 ohm power test, I used the 4 ohm tap. Let's start with our dashboard:
View attachment 400617

We have the high harmonic distortion which we kind of expect. But a lot of mains noise comes along for the ride, causing intermodulation with our main 1 kHz, making for a mess. SINAD which is the sum of all unwanted "stuff," lands the amplifier at the bottom of our rankings:
View attachment 400618

View attachment 400619

Noise is a step above but still nothing remotely to be proud of:
View attachment 400620

Frequency response is flat enough if we ignore varying performance between channels:
View attachment 400621

Crosstalk is one step above mediocre:
View attachment 400622

You get a better feel for distortion when we use 32 tones to simulate "music:"
View attachment 400623
Not pretty. Same story for 19+20 kHz tones:
View attachment 400624

The amplifier is fairly rated at 12 watts, assuming you don't care about distortion:
View attachment 400625
One channel is having trouble above 2 watts which we also saw in the dashboard. So maybe it is a bad tube or something. Best of luck to a customer figuring that out without this type of measurement.

If we "only" allow 1% distortion and noise, available power shrinks to a trickle:
View attachment 400626
Yes, that is only 2 watts!

Using 8 ohm tap, we get similar results:

View attachment 400627

Sweeping frequencies we see the typical rise in distortion with frequency. But also increase in distortion at low frequencies (transformer saturation?):
View attachment 400628
I am showing both channels. Dashed line is the "good" channel.

Our power on/off test shows instability on top of noise at these events:

View attachment 400629

Fortunately if you wait a minute or so, everything stabilizes:
View attachment 400630

Conclusions
The Yaqin MC-84L made a very positive impression on me with its modest size and super nice industrial design. And reasonable price for such tube products. Performance though, set a new record with respect to how bad it is, taking over the slot for the worst measured amplifier to date. The amp has 42 reviews on Amazon with average of 4.5 stars. Folks must be very tolerant of noise and distortion out there!

I do like the company honesty when it comes to power rating and even SNR.

Needless to say, I can't recommend the Yaqin MC-84L valve amplifier.

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

At least it's nice looking. And there's the six votes for the golfing panther..

 

[AndreaT]

Yep, I think many people are very tolerant for distortion when playing music.

Output resistance measurements (on the different taps as the 8ohm seems to have the feedback) would also have been informative.

Love the dedicated power supply for the blue LED ....


Since Amir forgot to post his listening experience ... (my emphasis)
from: https://www.audiokarma.org/forums/i...-el84-anyone-have-this-some-questions.289241/

3. YAQIN MC-84L 6P14 x4 Class A Vacuum Tube Integrated Amplifier​

check latest price

Pros:

• A very elegant looking device
• The sound quality is awesome
• Made to a very high standard
• Lots of positive reviews about this

Cons:

• We are a little close to 500 bucks
• You do have to work to get the best out of this

The elegance of the YAQIN MC-84L 6P14 x4 Class A Vacuum Tube Integrated Amplifier cannot be understated. I really like the wood grain effect this one has on the sides. Now I know that chances are this will be tidied away somewhere, but I do like the effort they have made with the design. The current asking price for this is currently $469.00 which is a little close to our 500bucks limit, but I do feel that the value for this is not bad at all. If you read up on what this is made with, it is designed with a very “Japanese”mindset and they love their audio crystal clear.

This little device does give you some very rich sound. I am sure there is some breaking in time here, but I found the sound to be very pleasing to my ears right from the start. I tell you Brett Michaels sounded like he was singing to me! In all seriousness, though I actually tested this with two sets of speakers, a higher end Klipsch set and also a more modest and older set of Sony speakers. There was a clear difference so I would say that in order to get the best sound out of this you need to have a solid set of speakers. Which to be fair is not the worst problem in the world now, is it? So, while the sound is great (as the design is very clever) you will have to tinker a bit to get the best sound possible.

What Other People Are Saying?​

On Amazon, there are plenty of glowing reviews for this. However, I did also find a video showcase over on YouTube. There is no “review” on this video, but it does give you an idea of the sound quality that you are going to be getting by using this. It does sound great so make sure you give this video a watch along with checking out those Amazon reviews.

I know we all want to be as below that 500 bucks price tag as possible, but I do feel that this YAQIN MC-84L 6P14 x4 Class A Vacuum Tube Integrated Amplifier is well worth the money. It has a lot of style so if you want it out in the open that is great. It is the sound that that really made me fall in love with this thing. I can see why so many people love this. Just make sure you know that while it is good, getting the best sound does require some work from you.

It is indeed the reason I stopped a few years ago my subscription to Stereophile and The Absolute Sound. Their inflation of A and A+ reviews was proof to me I could not trust their judgment and listening session comments when testing electronics. A showcase of English superlatives but a useless guide to help the music reproduction lover.

 

[Brab]

Have you been to the moon?

An unfair response. I know that people would characterize amps with measurements like these as broken, but perhaps this unit was actually broken.

 

[pogo]

but perhaps this unit was actually broken.

Maybe, no response to post #90...

 

[Timmy]

Did not read through the whole thread ... But is there any other integrated tube amp within this price range that could rather be recommended to someone who just wants to give that »tube thing« a chance?

 

[SIY]

Did not read through the whole thread ... But is there any other integrated tube amp within this price range that could rather be recommended to someone who just wants to give that »tube thing« a chance?

There are good tube amps and there are cheap tube amps. There are no good cheap tube amps. That's a sad reality.