After the great customer support from Elena and Jason, the kit arrived in The Netherlands. Perfectly packed, clear instructions and all parts complete. The instruction manual is of a very high quality ( respect! ) and building the amp was not very complex and a lot of fun to do. You need a bit of solder skills and the right material though. Unpacking the big Lundahl trafo's was a special moment, they are beauties. After finising the kit and putting in a complete Genalex tube set, i first listened with a cheap headphone to be sure everything worked fine. Sound was a bit muffled ( brand new tubes ) in the beginning but it was already very promising. I could not resist and connected it to my Klipsch Forte III and Lumin A1 to listen how it sounds and see if i had enough power. Well....more than enough! After connecting the TU-8600 i let it play for days to break in all parts, no critical listening, just background music. Last night i was listening with my girlfriend and we sat on the couch for hours, number after number, album after album and we could not stop. I'm 42 and had all kinds of equipment at home. Only transistor amps and my last on was a 2x30 Watt class A of 14K. None of these made me cry of musical emotion...this one did which was a revalation. Stage, immense detail, dense natural spooky real sound, articulation of voices, bass speed, power & detail...all there at any volume. Also when you play at low volume all is there which is very important for me, i don't want to play loud all the time to hear all details. The only thing i changed were the ECC82's which are Philips Miniwatt's now to give the sound a bit more 'body' but that's more personal taste. I'm very very happy with this amp, and it feels like an endpoint now. What you read in the reviews is true, it is that good. A big thanks to the designer of the amp and diyaudiostore. You made me a happy man.

I've always been intrigued by 300B SET amps. Over the years I've built a number of kits from AudioNote Kits and Bottlehead. Herb's Stereophile review made me commit. This is the best packed, picked, instructed kit I have made. Like Herb's, mine is the upgraded version, but I built it myself. It was an easy and fun build. My only caution is for newbies with little soldering experience. Watch some YouTube videos and practice first. In places the PCB is densely populated and the solder pads are close together.

Now for the best part. As Herb stated in his review, pair the TU-8600R with the right speaks and they sing. It's just mind boggling. You just built a $20,000 amp $2,000. There's nothing else to say!!!!!!

I've had the base TU8600 with Mundorf silver oil caps added for 2 years now. Everything pretty much settled. Was looking to buy those transformers only but never saw available until now (thanks Jason)
Anyway, the improvement was immediate no break in needed. As I've read before just more of what the 8600 is good at clarity, soundstage, tonal balance and accuracy.

Worth the dough!

This 300B kit resulted in sound quality that retired amps from my listening room that cost several fold more. The build instructions are so clear that experienced builders and newcomers should enjoy the soldering.... and the end product offers performance that can’t be over-sold

still in assembly,buteverything looks great, and the instructions are the best I've seen. I have high hopes and plan to power Altec 9844B's

After a long while of soldering, three months at least, I finished my second diy project - A Elekit TU8600 tube amp. I told all my friends that there are 2 things in audio I wouldn’t touch. 1 is vinyl the another is tube powered amp. Obviously, I break the latter one now. Faced a bunch of parts, I had a doubt that “can I really get it done?” However, the manual was clear & straight forward, even there’s no photo instructions like the amp camp amp did. Used a long while because I wanted to enjoy the processing. Part by part, step by step. For me it’s a great satisfaction to see it stuffed full. Watch those tubes light up the first time. It’s really some strangest feeling. Describing the sound texture isn’t my best. All I can tell is really a big difference with all equipment I have. And I understand why there are a lot of tube-philers after decades of solid state occupied the market. I need to thanks Victor Kung for helped me some up grade parts, even I didn’t install them all now. But after A period of time to listen. I’ll put them all for a deep comparison. I, definitely, believe this’s not the only one vacuum thing in my life.

Like the previous reviewer, I decided to build this kit based on the outstanding review in Stereophile. I also went with the upgraded version--Lundahl transformers, Mundorff caps, Shuguang 300Bs. And, like the previous reviewer, I'd sound a note of caution about the soldering; oversoldering, a common beginner's error (it certainly was mine), will definitely cause problems in some areas where the PCB is densely populated. I think I'm reasonably good with a soldering iron and I still had to redo a couple of connections.

That said, the instructions are excellent and the polarity markings on the PCB make proper orientation of the components foolproof. Just take your time.

I built it not sure whether it would drive my medium-efficient monitors but thinking I would be happy if it performed well with headphones, which I listen to a lot. And it does, but speakers not so much; there's just not enough power for even low-mids, let alone bass. So I started nosing around for high-efficiency DIY speakers, which, long story short, led me to the pair I am now using: Audio Nirvana 8" full range speakers with ferrite magnets in very simple ported bass reflex cabinets made out of plywood. They definitely look homemade, because they are, and they're still breaking in, but they sound fabulous.

This experience has opened up a whole new way of thinking about stereo gear for me: low-powered amplification, high-efficiency speakers. I won't go on about this here, but I'd be happy to hear from anyone similarly inclined. And to wrap up, the Elekit TU 8600R is a fabulous amplifier and easy to build as long as you're careful and have a light touch when the PCB gets crowded.