I know all of you guys love the Leckerton, but have any of you had the chance to hear the Vorzuge Pure II? Its still the best portable I've heard, but I've never had the chance to hear the Leckerton.

@CEE TEE: Oh, no worries! I wasn't even expecting a response until tomorrow, what with all you had to go through today (still feeling apologetic even though you kept saying it's not my fault!).

Thanks! Will ask Nick to adjust gain when I place an order.

And will leave Z7 in your care next time I come by to return stuffs. I think the Leck with it is just a sublime (trans)portable setup.

@SoupRKnowva: I could... purchase a used one on H-Fi and be the guinea pig for that comparison. I'm kind of curious about it, too, and... honestly, I think all I really need is an amp right now. Hopefully resale of it won't be too bad when I end up not liking something...

Though I must say, "blackground" is one of its touted features, and I'm kind of looking for that. (and resolution)

@knerian: Yep! Haha... you saw my reaction.

I think a part of it was... I was looking for that "clarity" with the Z7 for so long, because I have modded it for so long, and that was the one thing I was always looking for. There is never enough resolution for me with the Z7, and the worst thing is that it keeps on improving, so I still have yet to see an end. I suspect the Leckerton is the end, either, but at least it does do better than all of my sources.

Hm... so after fixing the channel imbalance, and doing some mods to the capacitors, I feel the TTVJ Portable Tube Hybrid is sounding like a smoother/fuller/slightly less detailed Leckerton UHA-6S Mk.II. Airiness, soundstage, imaging, etc... are all about the same. Noise floor be damned until I try to cover the casing with mu-metal.

But... the TTVJ truly is a phenomenon portable amo. Almost matching the transparency of the Leckerton is no small feat, and somehow... I'm enjoying it more for vocals, probably because of less "problems" that I can hear with certain recordings.

So... hmm... after that initial moment of blood rushing to my head, I think I'll hold off on finalizing the order on the Leckerton, and probably wait until either the portable Cavalli amp is released, or attempt to make my own solid state portable amp and tune it to sound like the TTVJ... (this'll be fun!)

Now I can understand why the TTVJ almost never goes up for sale.

what kind of mods did you do, any pictures?

I soldered high frequency ceramic caps (1pF value) in parallel to the metallized polypropylene caps in the signal paths (left and right channels) in order to color the sound a little bit. <- it's a tube amp so I can do whatever the heck I want, right?

The end result is actually kinda surprising, but I "half-expected" that given that this article:
http://diyaudioprojects.com/mirror/members.aol.com/sbench102/caps.html

...gave me an idea of what would happen when two caps that are underperforming are suddenly coupled in parallel, and then they measure differently.

It gives a slightly cleaner sound, so now the TTVJ amp is just a hair away from the analytical sound of the Leckerton, but I think I'd prefer the smoothness of the tube amp 100%. If only there was any way to eliminate the ringing when I plug the cable in (that's the only time it rings), and to shield the tubes and the buffer op amps away from GSM signal, I think it'd be perfect.

Anyway, if you're interested in knowing which capacitors I coupled the ceramic caps to, I can take some photos by this weekend. I think I'll also take a photo of the fix for the channel imbalance issue (just a voltage divider built using resistors off of RadioShack) for future reference...

interesting if you could take a pic that would be great.

oh and thanks for the great read, a little above my head but informative none the less.