Description

> OUT OF STOCK

SADLY, my management has decided to refocus on OEM against its own brand.

After the stock will be ended, the next production will be January 2024, (if not discontinued). On March 1st, we remain only 16 units of our Doge 7 and 13 units of our Doge 8. After the inventory will be ended (probably in April) we’ll be on backorder for around 10 months for Doge 8 and forever for Doge 7. 

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2021 summer update: we have upgraded stock tubes to the high-grade German brand TAD “Premium Selected”.

Note about chassis color: available in black only

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2023 update: we have upgraded ALL the caps, including the least strategic in the signal path, to Claritycap ESA type. We don’t use anymore Wima caps in the 2023 version, 100% of the coupling caps are now Claritycaps.

2023 version

2022 version

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In 2011, Arthur Salvatore, an independent reviewer and quite famous in audiophiles circles, wrote on his audio blog www.high-endaudio.com:

“The Doge 8 may be the best preamplifier value in the history of audio”

Please click here to read the section saying this statement about Doge 8.

Please click here to read the full review of Arthur Salvatore about Doge 8.

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Doge 8 uses 8 tubes. Some of you asked us: “why so many tubes? Is your preamp a nuclear plant?? Shouldn’t the signal path be the shortest?

More than simple: 4 tubes are dedicated to the phono stage. It is like a stand-alone phono preamp inside the preamp. 4 tubes are for the line stage. So finally the main section, the Line stage, which is comparable with most tube preamps as most tube preamps have Line stage only uses only 4 tubes like most of the tube preamps.

DOGE 8 CLARITY 2017, 2019 & 2021 versions enjoyed very popular success, with an incredible satisfaction rate of 96% versus the already excellent satisfaction rate of 92% for older versions.

The key feature since 2017 Edition is the use of high-end coupling capacitors from the UK, the audiophile-grade ClarityCap ‘ESA’ model that is, in our opinion, the best cost/performance choice on the market today. We have been so impressed by the improvement in sound performance compared to Wima caps, that we installed them on all our products. As a reference among many, the Italian speakers brand Sonus Farber uses them for the crossover in their $25,000 speakers.

We have chosen the adjective ‘Clarity’ for the latest version of DOGE 8 with reference to the ClarityCap brand and also because this adjective reflects very well DOGE 8’s main qualities of transparency and neutrality.

There are many testimonies in forums and blogs reporting that the Doge 8 is the best preamp in the world in this price range. We won’t make that claim ourselves as we haven’t listened to all the other preamps in the world, but we are very proud of these owners’ feedback. We also received direct sales customers’ feedback that it has no competitors below $5,000 or sometimes that it is simply the best preamp they’ve ever heard.

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Below are the marks Doge 8 got in the famous STEREO German magazine at the price of 6,800€ (=$8000) under the model name “LUA Reference No.7”.

Not only Doge 8 (under LUA OEM name) got the extremely rare rating of 100% for sound performance, but it got at the same time 5 stars award for performance versus price!!

This 100% mark was won with NOS tubes.

The great news is you can now buy Doge 8 with similar tubes as a factory upgrade at $2,099 versus $8,000 for the LUA reference No7.

Please go to the main product menu and choose “Limited Edition with NOS tubes“.

LUA Reference N°7 internal

(6,800€ = $8,000) with industrial Wima cap

Doge 8 at $1669 with audiophile-grade Claritycap

So when both an independent reviewer Arthur Salvatore and the famous STEREO magazine say for the first that Doge 8 “may be the best value preamp in the history of audio” for the first and for the latter that it is worth 5 stars for its price value at $8,000, then I hope reading this section, you will have less and fewer doubts that Doge 8 is insane value.

Not let’s go to a sensitive topic. You might think, and that would make sense, that probably we sold our schematics and PCB of Doge 8 but certainly, the German OEM customer had put higher range components in it to go to that level of price.

WRONG.

The LUA reference No.7 uses extremely reliable but industrial Wima coupling capacitors (the ugly red 16 plastic bright stuff 😉 ) whereas our audiophile’s UK Claritycaps are 10 times the price of Wimas. You can also note the number of white plastic connectors required by Mr. Lua whereas our Doge 8 uses soldering only, for perfect conduction and to avoid any loose contact.

DOGE products are clearly higher standards than past LUA German products. Doge 8 is a true bargain considering it bests the $8,000 “Lua Reference No.7″ in both quality of parts and performance

This preamp is incredibly neutral and transparent and provides all that you expect from a high-end preamp. You will be delighted by the silky sound of the Doge 8 Clarity. It has a little warmth which you can expect from a tube device, but not an exaggerated warmth compared to many other tube preamps. Those of our clientele that own solid-state power amplifiers will like this transparency and subtlety and warmth.

The schematics (circuit design) of the Doge 8 Clarity is both simple and sophisticated at the same time. It allows perfect matching with any power amplifier on the market by utilizing a sophisticated buffer stage driven by a current generator called “MU follower.” The outcome is a perfect impedance match with any amplifier in perfect synergy.

Doge 8 Clarity uses 2 transformers and a choke with Pi filtering (a choke is a power supply filtering device that has a similar manufacturing process to a transformer but with only one wiring) which allows very silent power. The transformer is an Ei type with Z10 Japanese core steel and on purpose, not the R-core type asked by LUA in Reference No.7 above. Mr. Liu our chairman and designer doesn’t like R-core transformers and thinks they are not suited for tube amps and we can explain why by email, but we don’t want to enter in magnetic fields topics here.

One transformer is for main power and the second one is for standby mode and digital functions of the remote controller and relays activation. This makes a full separation of the digital and analog functions. Please note that in standby mode, only the small 5W transformer remains “on”, the main power is off and the tubes as well.

Most components are imported brands. The electrolytic capacitors are Japanese Nippon Chemicon, the coupling capacitors are now the ESA model of the UK brand Claritycaps. Relays for input selection are German OMRON. And last but not least, you would be surprised if you were comparing the signal cable we use and those of well-known brands. Our signal cable is a very expensive silver-PTFE with shielding it has surprised a lot of reviewers as none was used to such silver cable quality for such a price level. We put attention to any single detail, like even shielding the inputs board with the relays.

The chassis is particularly tough and luxurious due to the use of 6mm thick aluminum for all panels. The front panel finish is brushed anodized aluminum.

The connectors are from the highest grade, sourced from Taiwan, with 5µm gold plating.

The Doge 8 Clarity has an output socket designed for a proprietary cable to connect the Doge 8 Clarity with the Doge 9 PAB mono-blocks. It allows Doge 8 to automatically turn-on and turn-off Doge 9 if you use them as a complete set.

THE PHONO STAGE :

Doge 8 has a high-quality built-in phono stage, and this phono stage is with tubes only. There is no phono output as the phono stage is designed especially to match with the line stage. However, it is not a cheap phono stage just for the purpose to say “there is a phono stage”… it is a comprehensive phono stage with 3 choices of input: MM/MC low/MC high. MC low sensitivity is for cartridges between 0.1mV to 0.2mV and MC high sensitivity is for cartridges between 0.25mV to 0.5mV.

What is important to point out is that both MM and MC are true tube phono stages with zero solid state. There were many rumors on forums, all good-faith rumors that some Doge 8 versions had a Jfet pre-stage for MC. There has never been any single version of Doge 8 with a Jfet pre-stage for MC. Our OEM German partner LUA  asked us to do this, that’s the reason some of you might have been confused. Here is a photo that can help you to understand this.

The RCA inputs for phono (and now the dip-switches selectors for impedance) are well shielded by a stainless steel cage which probably made some of our customers think that it was a Jfet stage.

It is nothing very important, but we wanted to take the opportunity to clarify that point as we have regular questions about this point. All Doge 8 versions got a 100% tube phono stage since the first unit was released in 2006.

In the 2019 Edition, and current 2021 version we improved the photo stage and we added :

• DIP switches at the back panel to enlarge the choice of impedance input for MC cartridges with 3 choices in (100 ohms, 300 ohms, 1 Kohms) 
• DIP switches at the back panel to enlarge the choice of capacitance input for all cartridges with 4 choices in total (47pf, 100pf, 150pf, 220pf)

• Read here the review of Mike Kontor blog

• Read here the review in the Hifi blog TNT-Audio.com

PRICE POLICY

Factory-direct price: once you will have added the product to the cart (without the need to register) you will fill your country and see the total price including delivery to your front door, Paypal or Credit card fees, and one year warranty served in your country.

If you pay by bank transfer, you will get 5% discount as our bank doesn’t charge fees so we refund Paypal financial gateway fees doing so, and you can also pay by credit card and get 5% discount using Wise.com which is an alternative financial gateway ultra secured.

Possible taxes in your country are at your charge.

VACUUM TUBES POLICY

We are pleased to announce that Doge 8 is now supplied automatically with upgraded tubes. Our historical partner Shuguang Tube factory is close until spring 2022 so we inquired about new supplies and we made a partnership with the german brand TAD (Tube Amp Doctor) which is the biggest tube dealer worldwide and make his own brand of tubes which are in fact tubes manufactured by main tube companies, but with very severe sorting done in TAD german Labs. Only the best 20% tubes are selected to become a “TAD Premium Selected” tube.

What makes a preamp tube become a TAD PREMIUM SELECTED?

SAFETY PACK OPTION FOR TUBES

Please go there to read about it.

What about NOS?

NOS means New Old Stock. It is brand new tubes, but manufactured a long time ago by prestigious brands, in a time QC was at much higher standards than now, at a time when non-qualified tubes were destroyed on contrary as now, sold under same printing, and at a time some now-forbidden alloys were permitted.

Of course, if you already own tubes in particular NOS, you can choose the option “NO TUBES”.

If want to buy NOS tubes by yourself, you can choose the option “NO TUBES – You have your owns”.

NOS are the cream of the cream but they are becoming very rare, so more expensive and even good sometimes follow the law of diminishing returns. The ones we offer as factory upgraded as fairly priced and have been individually tested by TAD.

Regarding 12AX7 for the phono stage, we don’t recommend any NOS tubes, are all the prices are now crazy on don’t reflect any more sound quality but just rarety.

Regarding like stage, it is another deal, there is still affordable NOS as 12AT7 is less used than 12AX7.

From now on we can sell you at factory upgrade the same tubes used in the STEREO magazine benchmark which made Doge 8 get the 100% mark on STEREO German magazine. Just go in product and click on “Brimar Edition”.

PLEASE, PLEASE be very careful about NOS. Many NOS are UOS (Used Old stock). Because printing in 70’s was super robust, sole used old tubes can appear new. Never buy NOS on EBAY except if the guy is “100% rated” and has at least 20 positive feedbacks for NOS sales. A NOS should always be sold in its original packing, even it looks dirty. If the guy said he put new packing because the original was dirty, just flee.

Please note that for safety reasons to follow the international air freight regulations, remote controllers are supplied without batteries. They use the traditional AA type. Thanks for your understanding and please think to buy a pair prior to the delivery.