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Packed for bear, the Studio Six could have been drop-shipped by parachute and arrived none the worse for it. Proper engineering includes the packaging. Once I popped the undercarriage, this impression continued with lock bolts for all suspended iron and very tidy no-nonsense assembly with cryo-treated solid-core wiring for paralleling the 6.3mm ports and connecting them to the board via the pot. Geeks would have a field day admiring these guts.
The tube sockets too were of the highest quality and properly resistive to mounting, requiring a very confident push to be conquered. Assembly concern for Teutonic law and order even translated to the orientation of the hexagonal ΒΌ" socket mounts. Their upper edges line up ruler straight. This is how things used to be made before built-in obsolescence became an actual term to signify buy today, replace tomorrow.
Already on visual inspection the Studio Six exuded a very different vibe of bygone values.
Setting up on its final perch atop my Spanish Artesania Audio Exoteryc rack, I couldn't help but think of Jean Hiraga's designation for his famous DIY amp. Le monstre. This required an equivalent gesture. The Beast. Yes.
Firing it up with its rear-mounted mains rocker did nothing. So I thought. It turned out that the orange power light acted like a virtual tube. It came on delayed like the actual bottles. Once the light shone strong and steady, I had sound. With the three inputs on the back marked with engraved dots one thru three, it took no genius to figure out the equivalent selector position which remains unmarked for cosmetic clean. Surprisingly this super chunky selector—cue up images of Harley-Davidson clutches—had four stops. What was the last one for? Mute.
To start racking up burn-in hours I wired up the Studio Six to the single-ended outputs of my Metrum Hex converter which was preceded by SOtM's two-box battery-powered super-clocked USB bridge whilst the DAC's balanced outputs fed my Nagra Jazz for simultaneous big-rig duty. Other reviews could continue whilst the ST-6 put on the miles over a pair of beyerdynamic T1 perched atop Michael Hollesen's Klutz Design CanCan stand.
PureMusic 1.89g in 176.4kHz NOS-style upsampling mode preceded the SOtM D/D converter.
Obviously I couldn't resist sticking my ears into this sauce far sooner than fully cooked. What were supposed to be a few seconds of 'all systems are go' confirmation to sign off on the delivery turned into a few hours well past midnight.
Two matched 6V6 GT-STR output tubes marked TAD with a lightning-in-a-bottle logo.
The Beast definitely applied. Still having Bakoon's groundbreaking HPA-21 current-mode transistor amp on hand would make for a most interesting juxtaposition of 'the best' of hollow state versus a contender for best of vacuum state. Time to learn how close both technologies had gotten when cost was no issue.
