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Details: Written by: Grzegorz Makarewicz; Published: 10 May 2025; Hits: 248

A website dedicated to various topics that interest me. Retro electronics - mainly devices using vacuum tubes, forgotten old corners of Warsaw, fun with artificial intelligence and other threads that come to my mind at a given moment.

I also try to recreate here the descriptions of devices that I once posted on the now defunct FonAr and Trioda website. These are not only my descriptions, but also those of my friends, mainly from the Trioda Forum.

Cary Audio SLI-80 Signature Amplifier

Details: Written by: Grzegorz Makarewicz; Published: 04 July 2025; Hits: 24

Grzegorz 'gsmok' Makarewicz

Stereo tube amplifier from the American company Cary Audio Design. It is not only an amplifier from an American company, but unlike many products of this type, it is not manufactured in China, but in the United States of America. A real shock.

HAROLD - retro style amplifier

Details: Written by: Jacek Domański; Published: 05 July 2025; Hits: 2

Jacek "Jado" Domański (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
(published on the TRIODA-Grzegorz Makarewicz website on January 8, 2018)

The idea of making a small tube amplifier for home use had been on my mind for a long time. Due to the lack of "free processing capacity", I postponed the start of work until an indefinite future, but finally "that happy moment" came when I could start the construction work. One of the main assumptions of building the amplifier was to use my own parts, materials, occasional purchases and make the amplifier at a minimal cost of "one złoty", but with a significant contribution of my own "labor". However, if I do it "for myself", I can "deduct" this cost as a hobby - after all, this work gives us pleasure :-) Another assumption was that this amplifier cannot be an "electricity guzzler" - so that with everyday moderate use it does not cause excessive "filling" of the meter. So it had to be something simple...

Cary Audio CAD-805 Amplifier

Details: Written by: Grzegorz Makarewicz; Published: 04 July 2025; Hits: 26

Prepared by Grzegorz "gsmok" Makarewicz, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
(updated 12/10/2017)

Interesting tube monoblocks combining a rational approach from the technical side with audiophile "gadgets". They were manufactured by the American company Cary Audio Design. The set that fell into my hands probably comes from the early stage of production. I do not know when the first copies appeared - probably around 1994, because then the Stereophile magazine (01/1994) published a detailed review and measurement results.

Egovox tube amplifier

Details: Written by: Grzegorz Makarewicz; Published: 27 June 2025; Hits: 60

Grzegorz "gsmok" Makarewicz (prepared in 2007)

The EgoVox tube amplifier is one of the most "mysterious" products on our market in terms of the amount of information available about it. My searches in my home library resources ended with one article in the professional press, namely a description of a listening system test entitled "Close Specialization" in the April issue of the Audio-Video monthly from 2006. The evaluated listening system was based on the EgoVox amplifier with EL34 tubes in the output stage.

The AI-generated malicious drawing is not random