Elekit TU-8185 Power Amplifier Kit Unboxing

New from Elekit Japan. A compact vacuum tube amp with Triode-power pentode tube ECL85, including 2 x ECL805E, a highly reliable version of ECL85.

A compact body with a headphone jack on the front panel - you can enjoy its large-scale sound not only from speakers but also from headphones/earphones. This succeeds the popular TU-8100, which is now discontinued.

Elekit TU-8185 ECL85 Single Stereo Power Amplifier Kit

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AI-generated video transcript

Hi guys, Nick from Hi-Fi Collective here.

We’ve just received the new version of this amplifier, the TU-8100. It’s a two-watt-per-side valve amplifier, and it replaces the previous version, which we no longer have in stock anyway.

The main difference straight away is that this one is finished in black, and there have also been improvements to the circuit. Today we’re going to do a quick unboxing so you can see exactly what’s inside.

So, let’s pop this here… grab a knife… and open it up.

Elekit have a philosophy where they release a kit, keep it going for a year or so, then bring out an updated version. I actually think that’s a really good approach — otherwise you end up with companies offering hundreds of kits and you don’t really know which one to choose.

Right, let’s open this up.

First impressions: everything is very neatly packed. You’ve got these plastic printed covers here — these need to be assembled, and that’s what they look like once fitted.

Next up, the instructions. I just want to briefly mention the instructions with Elekit kits — they’re really excellent. Very clear, very pictorial. You’ll get a printed version in the box, and we also send a PDF version as well.

Orientation is clearly marked throughout — for example with electrolytic capacitors, positive and negative are very obvious. I’ve never had any issues building Elekit kits, and I’ve built quite a few over the years. I probably won’t build this one myself as it’s quite similar to a previous model we’ve already done a full build video on.

So, that’s the instructions.

Here are the PCBs — nice and clear, unpopulated as you’d expect. Then you’ve got the stickers. I’m not personally a big fan of stickers — I prefer screen printing — but that obviously adds cost. The nice thing is you don’t actually have to use the stickers if you don’t want to.

Then we’ve got all the component bags — all the resistors, capacitors, and general bits that populate the board. Speaker binding posts are here, and the valve bases as well. These are PCB-mounted and already assembled.

This box here should be the valves. One of the main differences between this kit and the older version is that this one is supplied with valves.

The older TU-8100 was supplied with a PCL86, whereas this one uses an ECL85-type valve. Let’s have a look…

Nice — these are Ei Yugoslavia valves, which are quite old stock. If memory serves, this is a triode-pentode valve. And actually, this is an ECL805e, which is a bit of a souped-up version — very cool. Elekit must have sourced a good batch of these.

Pop that back in the box.

Here we’ve got what look like the output transformers, and then the chassis itself. The chassis comes pre-formed, which is really nice — you take it apart during the build and then reassemble it, but having it pre-made shows you exactly how everything goes together.

Inside here we’ve got the power supply. This kit uses an external 12-volt power supply rated at 4.17 amps, so around 50 watts. There’s not a huge amount of power here, but you don’t need it — it’s only two watts per channel. That’s also why the amplifier can be so compact: there’s no massive internal power transformer.

And that’s the kit.

If you fancy building something and you haven’t done a valve kit before, this is a great place to start. You’ll want reasonably sensitive speakers — two watts per channel isn’t going to give you loads of volume — but it would work really nicely as a desktop or computer system, or with high-efficiency single-driver full-range speakers.

So, there you go.

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See you later.