Preach. Anything past 11 leaves my ears ringing the next day and to that we say “no thank you” haha.
If there are upgrades though, I wonder if we’ll be able to send our Pendants in for them?
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Wouldn’t be surprised if they’re doing a modest revamp of the amp. I had the Pendant and mine was both very noisy with the VC, and also I could not get the volume knob past 9oclock without killing my ears. I talked with both Zach and Justin about it a few times (both incredibly helpful and accessible) and my complaints were quite common. Knowing how much both those guys care about us and their products, i’d wager we’ll see some tweaks to address the common complaints, which will likely include more expensive components, hence the price hike.
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I’ve built several Bottlehead kits, so I know enough to be dangerous. I’m thinking that a different volume pot taper, or even some simple resistors on the input would give a more usable volume range.
curious for those who’ve rolled a lot of tubes through their pendant, which tubes did you find had the biggest effect on the noise floor? i’ve been grabbing random tubes online lately for mine and i’m finding the power tubes (el84) are having the biggest impact on the noise floor of the amp. not sure if it has to do with gain or what, but finding a nice sounding AND quiet set has been difficult. so far the new production JJ tubes and nos Baldwin rebranded Japanese tubes are very nice. not so nice are new production Sovteks, nos GE, and nos Amperex. the not so nice tubes are noisy enough that when a track gets quiet enough, i hear them with my VC. but with the quiet tubes i have no complaints. i’m starting to enjoy tube rolling quite a bit on this amp. i personally focus most of my efforts on the input tube, but was surprised that the power tubes were affecting the noise floor so much, i had assumed it was the input tube.
I’m also very curious about any updates to the Pendant that may justify the price increase that’s about to happen. I’ve been on the fence about adding a Pendant to my VC order to take advantage of the $200 discount. If the Pendant is about to get upgraded, I may hold off. Has anyone asked Zach specifically about this?
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Ask Zach before buying, definitely. He’s so honest and forthcoming it’s almost shocking. I’m pretty sure the price hike is going to accompany meaningful updates to the amp.
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Heyheyhey! I got some emails about this so I will post here and then link the emails to this thread. A lot of the updates are already done, as there’s a few noisier Pendants that were from very early runs back in 2017/18 and I know Justin from ampsandsound made some adjustments throughout the production of these that have made them quieter and quieter as we’ve gone on. I don’t build these, nor am I an amp technician expert, so I can only pass on the information that I know. BUT - I do know that save for maybe the first couple units back in 2018 both the high and low impedance outs have been quiet vs just the low impedance out being quiet on those first few units.
Aside from that here’s changes that have been made AND are implemented to my knowledge even on current units:
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Impedance out change on high out to 100 ohms VS 300 ohms. (this happened in early 2020) So it’s 8/100 on the impedance now. The 100 ohm out is quieter than 300 and has the benefit of a more liquid sound that keeps bass tightness vs 8 ohm out.
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Larger Choke was a fix that was done early on to help noise floor.
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Moved components so wiring was more linear and separated, you may notice the ZMF logo has moved spots I believe to accommodate this.
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I know there’s a number of other things that have changed slightly to make a “sum of parts” addition - you’d have to as Justin about all of it.
This has increased the price gradually over production of the amp which has been handed on to us, but we have kept the price linear until now. As starting Jan 1 the amp will ALSO receive these updates:
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Stepped attenuator. We found a stepper attenuator that costs about 6x the cost of the current one - but it has a much more fluid volume ramping so that you can use the entire range of the knob. We had played with a gain switch, but between the new stepped attenuator and the changes from 12ax/12at and 12au tubes it’s simply not needed.
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Jupiter coupling caps. These take longer to burn in, but they have a sound that has a little more of that 3d magic to them and more “space.” It keeps the linearity I love about the pendant as well.
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New wooden volume knob. I know it’s aesthetic but, you’ve gotta have a sweet volume knob.
So as a whole, the amp cost to US from ampsandsound has increased almost 500 USD to ZMF - in a true retail world if we wanted to sell to dealers I’d have to raise the costs of the amp by at least 2.5 - or 1250 USD. I simply want the Pendant to be an amp that is the true “I want to get into tube amps and want an endgame amp” or “I want a tube amp that doesn’t need $1000 worth of tubes to sound good.”
So instead of worrying about dealers we are just going to keep selling the amp direct to customers, and pass on the exact increase of cost to you. We don’t make a big profit on the Pendant, and the only way to make our requests for customization from ampsandsound as an OEM and keep the price down is to do it this way.
As an aside, the Pendant at $1999 the Pendant is a great value and retains much of what you’ll be getting at $2499. The volume knob may be able to be swapped out later on, I am not sure about that, but we won’t be able to update the old amps with coupling caps and a stepped attenuator.
Hope this helps and makes sense! Let me know if you have any questions. I can ping Justin if there’s stuff that I don’t know the answer to.
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Hey Zach,
Maybe this is a question for Justin: Looking at the underside of my amp I can see why changing the coupling caps could be a problem, but why not the stepped attenuator? There’s a ton of room around it.
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Hey zach quick question. Did it go back and forth from 32 to 100? My understanding was that the amp that I got was 8 and 32?
Hey @ToddR!
I certainly can’t speak for Justin, I should have elaborated, there won’t be any free attenuator swaps sponsored through ZMF. But if you want the stepped attenuator, that would be up to Justin as to cost and timeline at ampsandsound, if ofcourse he’s willing to do it.
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There was one batch that had 8/32 impedance out, maybe 5-10 units? - the 32 is definitely quiter than the 100 ohm out but not quite as warm. If you’re following the 1/8 rule it’s probably the best one to have, but the 100 ohm out is definitely warmer.
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Will there be a name or designation change for this? Pendant Mk II? Pendant Rev 1.2? Something like that officially from You/Justin?
I know there are small batches with variations like the 32ohm version, different chokes as you explained, etc. but despite this, I think it’s important people know what they are buying, especially if a pre-Jan 1 Pendant hits the used market and doubly especially when the MSRP changes.
The Audeze LCD-2 is a prime example of revisions not getting a name/rev number change, and no one really knowing what the hell they are getting.
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You need a matching right angle power cable to keep the flow.
You mean like this one? 
Exactly like that one. looks very pricey.
Haha, some might call it pricey, I might call it a fraction of what I paid for the Pendant. I bought it for it’s aesthetic value (i.e. hidden) and I’m certainly not going to claim any sonic benefits, but only because I haven’t A-B’d it against the stock cable.
Having said that, there are power cables more expensive than the Pendant, so relatively speaking, I thought the price was reasonable. Patrick, the owner, was very helpful when it came to advice on what I needed, and didn’t try to sell me his most expensive cables.
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Yeah I absolutely will make sure it’s clear with some naming schema that its still the Pendant, with the same sound, just slightly changed components to further refine the design. I don’t want any confusion for sure!
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I switched to wire world cables and the only thing I noticed was the digital meter on my conditioner went from 118v to 120v. So maybe the cable did it or something else in the house. Didn’t notice any increase in sound quality.
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Could you please elaborate on the sonic differences between a 100 ohm and 300 ohm out?
Using ZMF cans predominantly
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