Everything started at 1984 in Bulgaria when myself Vladimir Bazelkov/Vlad was involved in audio electronics. I became a HI-FI Enthusiast and since than the "audio bug" got me and never left me. 1986 I graduated as electronic engineer. In 1989 I patented an audio circuit-tone control with no phase shift distortions. Over the years I designed and built many different audio circuits and units. At this point I had gained an enviable reputation for building excellent sounding equipment. Experimenting all the time, always trying to improve, that’s what innovative person do. My deep love to music and being an audiophile was moving Audio Mirror to success. I designed many circuits that outperformed many existing ones. In October 1999 I moved to US.
Audio Mirror specialize in High-End audio equipment. Mostly tube based.
Tube mono blocks are point to point hand wired. All parts are carefully selected and critically tested. The emphasis at Audio Mirror is on both performance and appearance of products.
I think of an audio system as a work in progress. Every element of the system contribute to the final result. Audio Mirror equipment is designed to produce the best possible sound in such way that bring the finest music quality alive at your home. One more thing I want to say. Audio Mirror follows the minimalist philosophy. What this means? It is much better to have a very well designed simple circuit with high quality parts than have a complicated one which won’t benefit the sound. There is not such a thing like – improving the sound. You can not improve the original recording. The whole this hobby and efforts are how to degrade it less.
It all started in Sofia, Bulgaria back in 1984. I was already a Hi-Fi enthusiast and was having a Hitachi MOSFET power amp 150 watt per channel with big needle meters (we used to call it "wipers") on the front panel. I was so proud.
One day a friend of mine brought a tube guitar amp. It was ugly small 12 watt mono amp. Made in Germany (East Germany at that time) He wanted to hook up his amp to my speakers. I laughed because I was so sure a mono amp, 12 watt tube guitar amp won't even get close to my glorified MOSFET Hitachi. To my surprise I found myself sitting and listening to this little tube creature and was wondering why my MOSFET monster stopped impressing me anymore. It was the tubes of course and the simplicity of the little gizmo. This is how I was introduced to tubes.
Later when our country dropped the Communism and became a democratic one, all the former military bases started selling their stuff. Close to Sofia was one of the biggest military warehouses for electronic parts. The problem was that I couldn't find it on the map. It was well hidden. In 1993 I somehow got some address, where former military warehouse might be and went there. It wasn't an actual address as you can imagine. I found an old military base building with no signs or street name or number. Next to the entrance gate was a check point boot, which actually was converted to a store. I found there some tube treasures which I knew are suitable for audio. There was also a lot of RF tubes, transmitting ones, ...etc.
I purchased almost all tubes displayed. Next day I went there again and there was more tubes. 4-5 days in a row I was buying all the tubes inventory and next day they was magically bringing more tubes. I was able to make a deal with the old lady at the counter and she got me the list with all the tubes they had. This is where I got puzzled because there was tubes I've never heard about. 6C33C tube was there. Never heard of this tube before. I bought a few, because I wasn't sure what this tube is and what the specs are. Being a post Communist country we had a lot of Russian technical books and going to the library was my lucky choice. Oh my God!!! When I saw the specs of this tube I was shocked and trilled at the same time. This tube was so promising, having all the necessary qualities to be the "Queen" of all tubes. I started building and experimenting different designs and circuits to see how it will perform as an audio tube, because as you may know originally this tube was used in Russian jet fighter "Mig" This is how everything started. The rest of the story you can see .......is on my website. It materialized into a beautiful power amp.
Vladimir Bazelkov - Vlad