Y-S Audio (audio experience) Symphonies

The best kept secret in high-end?
At first, I was a skeptic. I have to be honest for my readers. I don't like to sugar coat things. I had seen offerings from this company on eBay and audiogon and their prices were cheap. The products "looked" cool enough to dig a little deeper into. Advertising and marketing efforts are a little thin for this company, which to the best of my knowledge is a one man show based out of Hong Kong. Hmmm...more skepticism.Chui Yat Sang is the self appointed "master" of valve tube amplifiers in Hong Kong. This may be so, maybe not. His web site is a tad confusing as his English doesn't exactly flow like water. The layout and navigation is poor, and his products do not exactly jump out at you from the clutter. However, once you find them (I took the liberty of getting to the goods with the main title link of this review), you will be dazzled by the beauty of these esoteric devices.I took the plunge into the "base" line, which is the middle of 3 line stage preamp offerings: the "Symphonies". You can see by the picture above (clicking on it will expose a larger image) that it is a handsomely built component designed with quality parts, heavy knobs and not too plain, not too gaudy on the eye. The power switch is a rocker located on the side, and there is a single red LED on the front panel that indicates if if is actually on or off. Let me warn ya, its *very* difficult to see, even in the dark! You must get down in front and squint to see if its actually lit up or not.

Looking inside the box, one can see the simplicity and quality of the construction here. The tubes are laid out horizontally and the wiring is all point to point. There is a single, tiny piece of circuit board used to hold the capacitors together as a base, and that is it! If you are into the "less is more" philosophy in hardware construction as it relates to signal path, then you are sure to be impressed with this product. Three 12AX7A vacuum tubes are used in the stage and a one 6X4 for the power supply. Simplicity!

So, how does it sound?
I was unprepared for just exactly how good all of my material sounded when I first fired this sucker up. My system at the time was a Rotel RC-1070 SS preamp > McCormack DNA-1 power drive and a lovely pair of Martin Logan SL3 loudspeakers, which are noted for their sheer transparency and tendency to really show you the strengths and weakness of upstream components. The Rotel sounded shrill, harsh and hurt my ears! I figured I needed some tubes to help me out here. Luckily, I was able to borrow a friends Conrad Johnson PV-10 tube preamp, and yes indeed, that really did the trick.
The Symphonies arrived (approx. 3-4 weeks after I sent payment overseas), and right out of the box it completely smoked, that's right, SMOKED! the CJ. I was blown away. The soundstage width and depth grew well beyond my speakers, the presentation of the music was far more realistic and the bass tightened up considerably. There was a smooth, liquid like quality to the music. It wasn't "thrown" at you, as it was w/the solid state Rotel. It was more like the music was "rolled" at you, straight and smooth. All this before it was even broken in! There was a slight grainy quality to it, but that quickly disappeared after approx. 100 hours of burn in time. Its completely broken in now, and it still seems like it gets better and better sounding with every month I listen to it. I brought it over my friends house, along with his CJ that I needed to return. I had him sit down and swap the gear in and out of his system for his own ears to taste. The material we were listening to, a live WSP show he recently recorded, took on such a new lively and clear presentation at one point that I was sure he put on a different and much better recording. Nope, he just hooked up the Symphonies. We were astounded that a $400 preamp (shipping included) could add so much to the music over his $1000+ CJ PV-10, it just didn't seem right. It was as if we had our ears stuffed with cotton with the CJ, and then removed with the Symphonies. Amazing. Needless to say, the CJ was demoted to "boat anchor" status the next morning.

I started off by asking if this company could be the best kept secret in high-end. So far, in my admittedly limited experience, I have to think that it could be true! I'd love to get one of his higher end products. I've since moved on from the Symphonies to a different piece of gear that offered a few things in one (the Musical Fidelity CD-PRE 24) as I am always on the move for more and more equipment to listen to, but this little tube pre will always have a place in my heart. I know Chui can just build me another one ...but next time I'll go for his Symphonies + as he told me it is a vast improvement over the straight symphonies model. That, I have to hear! Hey Chui...how about building me a pair of those 120w mono blocks ? I'm still waiting for you to respond to my email on that one. :)
Specifications Reference gear used
Controls : Gain , Input Selector , Balance , Power On/Of
Output : RCA x2
Input : RCA x4
Output Impedance : 2K ohm
Frequency Response: 10Hz ~ 200KHz(-0.5dBat 5V)
T.H.D : <0.04% (20Hz ~ 20KHz /2V)
Input Sensitivity : 50 ~ 100mV
Input Impedance: 50K ohm
Gain: 12dB
S/N: >98dB
Channel Balance: <1dB(20Hz ~ 10KHz /max output)
Channel Separation: >56dB(2Hz ~ 20KHz)
Phase Mode : Normal
Max Output : 30V
Line-Stage Tubes : 12AX7A x3
Power Supply : 6X4
Dimension: 400mm x 310mm x 80mm (W x D x H)
Weight: 4.5kg
Power Source: 110-127/220-240V,50/60Hz

Rotel RC-1070 solid state preamp
Conrad Johnson PV-10 tube preamp
McCormack DNA-1 Powerdrive amp
Philips 963sa SACD player
Parasound transport
Benchmark DAC-1
smART DIO DAC
MIT term 3 interconnects and speaker cable
MIT term 2 speaker cable
DH Labs interconnects
Taylor taylo reference monitors w/custom Xovers and sub
Martin Logan SL3