Isn’t the Miuaudio MKTP-2 Valve Integrated Amplifier Basically a Copy of the Carot One ERNESTOLO!?

The other day, Shanghai Donya released a valve hybrid integrated amplifier called the “DN-10497” — and to anyone with eyes, this is clearly just a colour variant of the Carot One ERNESTOLO, the ultra-compact valve digital amplifier from Italy’s up-and-coming brand OpenItem, isn’t it!?

Valves are still the way to go! A valve amplifier at ¥29,999 that lets you feel every breath of the vocalist — the DN-10497

It has been around for a while, so those in the know may well recognise that silhouette. Shanghai Donya is offering it in blue!! “Vocals that really stand out — you can almost feel the singer’s breath right beside your ear…” That’s the kind of amplifier this is. Philips 6922 valve-equipped hybrid integrated amplifier combining headphone amp and speaker amp — DN-10497

…which is to say, however you look at it, this is absolutely, unambiguously deliberate — Grazie mille!

Carot One ERNESTOLO: Miniature Italian Valve-Hybrid Amplifier

The Carot One ERNESTOLO, as it happens, has long been one of the amplifiers I’ve had my eye on for my compact desktop PC audio setup. Despite its palm-sized dimensions, it features a fully separate two-tier enclosure — a valve headphone amp/preamp section on top, and a Class D digital power amplifier below. There’s the charming carrot-orange look, and the price is surprisingly approachable for an Italian product. Having won the AEX Audio Award 2012 Bronze Prize, the ERNESTOLO has been selling rather well in Japan by the standards of this type of ultra-compact amplifier.

Is Shanghai Donya’s DN-10497 an Inferior Copy of the Carot One ERNESTOLO?

Judging from the product images of the DN-10497 on the Shanghai Donya website, the aluminium enclosure, rear panel layout, components — all of it looks identical to the Carot One ERNESTOLO, down to the last detail. At first glance it might look like just another degraded Chinese knockoff, but given how precise the copy is, I get the feeling this is less a case of outright theft and more a situation where a Chinese contract manufacturer somewhere has gone ahead and commercialised it as an OEM product — or, to put it less charitably, diverted stock without going through the Italian Carot (OpenItem) side of things.

Wait — wasn’t Carot supposed to be Italian-made? ← That’s actually something I’d like to ask someone who owns one. The Carot One ERNESTOLO is a product of OpenItem, an Italian start-up founded in 2009 by one Antonio Ciaro. OpenItem states that its goal is “to offer outstanding Hi-Fi products at a fair price” — so perhaps the usual arrangement applies: conceived and specced out in Italy, manufactured in China to keep costs down?

“Carot One” is the brand of Italy’s “OpenItem”. OpenItem was founded in 2009 by a group of people with many years of experience in the audio industry. Their stated mission is “to offer outstanding Hi-Fi products at a fair price.” Having spent years in the audio world, they point out that there are far too many audio products carrying price tags that can hardly be called reasonable. Of course, there are many genuinely excellent high-end audio products out there. But it is equally true that some products carry prices that simply do not reflect their cost. OpenItem’s goal is to provide high-quality products — ones that surprise people the moment they hear or see them — at a fair price. ⇒ The distributor’s introduction page has disappeared, so this is sourced from Phile-web.

Looking at the published specs for the DN-10497, the technical specifications are virtually identical to those of the Carot One ERNESTOLO. Despite its tiny size, it features the same fully separate upper and lower enclosure, with the upper preamp section doubling as a single-valve headphone amplifier. It appears to be the same unit as the previously released Shanghai Donya DN-84335 (※ which may in turn be the same as the Miuaudio MKTP-1 / Carot One FABRIZIOLO, mentioned later). The lower power amplifier section is a Class D digital amp using the same Tripath TA2024 chip as the ERNESTOLO. Power is supplied via a fairly large external DC 12V AC adaptor.

Whether the internal circuit boards of the Carot One ERNESTOLO and the DN-10497 are truly identical is unknown, as there’s no way to see inside the DN-10497. For now, one notable difference is that where the Carot One ERNESTOLO ships with an Electro-Harmonix 6922 valve, the DN-10497 comes fitted with a Philips 6922 — which should make at least some difference to the tonal character. That said, valves are generally expected to be swapped out for higher-grade alternatives anyway, so this isn’t really a fundamental issue. (Rolling to 6DJ8, 6922, or 12AU7 is also supported.)

The DN-10497 is a Shanghai Donya–branded product, so as usual, the warranty is three months. I rather expect that once the current stock sells through, restocking will depend on how popular it proves — in other words, sold out means sold out. Also, ¥29,999 is quite a bold price point, isn’t it! The Carot One ERNESTOLO proper goes for around ¥40,000 or so at retail, so how you view that gap is the question… If, like the earlier DN-84335, they’d dropped the “2” and gone with a straight ¥9,999, I suspect I might personally have found it rather difficult to resist…

The Enduring Appeal of the Carot One ERNESTOLO

For my part, at that kind of price difference, I think I’d still rather have the genuine Carot One ERNESTOLO. My reasons being:

1. Resale value when trading in will be different.
2. The Italian original brand and a Chinese OEM simply feel different to me.
3. That glossy orange finish is genuinely stylish and rather lovely.
4. The higher-spec limited “Limitata” model exists only under the Carot One name.
5. Quality and warranty considerations.

Without actually opening it up and looking inside, it’s impossible to say for certain, but even if the enclosure and circuitry are completely identical, Hi-Fi is the kind of hobby where using different grades or types of capacitors, resistors, op-amps and so on can produce a night-and-day difference in sound — even between units that are ostensibly the same thing. There’s real value in having a brand staked on it, where someone with a discerning ear has made all the component selection decisions; and even if the parts were of equivalent grade, the combination alone can make all the difference. That’s essentially the trust that brand loyalty rests on. Of course, there’s always a chance that opening one up would reveal the parts to be absolutely identical — and if someone who bought one were to post internal photos, that would be most welcome…

There’s also the matter of manufacturing rejects. With any industrial product, a certain number of units will fail quality control during production — what you might call B-grade stock — and what happens to those units does give one a slight sense of unease. Of course, if that’s what accounts for the price difference, then it changes the calculus somewhat… As for the Carot One ERNESTOLO itself, a glance at the reviews on Amazon.co.jp and Kakaku.com reveals various complaints about noise, volume control channel imbalance, and unit-to-unit variation in build quality — so having Yukimu, a distributor well known in the audiophile world, handle warranty and initial defect support is worth a great deal. And yet — the curious thing is that the same manufacturing inconsistencies feel somehow forgivable when you think of it as an Italian product, whereas if you think of it as Chinese-made, the eyes go a bit steely in response. It really is remarkable how much of this is purely psychological, isn’t it.

Carot One Fabriziolo ≒ DN-84335, and Other Fascinating Products from Carot One

The DN-84335 — the valve portable headphone amplifier sold earlier by Shanghai Donya, which appears to be either a knockoff or an OEM of the Carot One Fabriziolo — has sold out and remains out of stock. Will it be restocked? This is essentially the preamp and headphone amp section of the ERNESTOLO on its own, and the price makes it quite attractive. Interesting to note that the op-amp is a TI NE5532 — which means swapping it out could be another enjoyable avenue to explore.

Shanghai Donya isn’t like an ordinary distributor or retailer — quality varies enormously, and the whole thing is a bit of a mixed bag, but they do an excellent job of sourcing all manner of gadgets from Chinese manufacturers at remarkably low prices, which makes the whole operation genuinely interesting, in the manner of a discount bazaar. Hit on a hidden gem and the value for money is extraordinary… pull the short straw, and it’s a case of “what on earth is this?” — it’s perhaps the audio world’s equivalent of a pop-up novelty shop, if you will.

Actually, I find myself more drawn to the ERNESTOLON E than the ERNESTOLO itself… The ERNESTOLON E has a built-in USB DAC, and its enclosure is a step up in size from the ERNESTOLO.

The GILDOLO is a digital amplifier that uses no valves at all. Its price is not far off the Shanghai Donya DN-10497, meaning the same budget could get you the genuine Carot One article. If valves aren’t a requirement, the Carot One Gildolo might be the sensible choice. PC audio involves a great deal of noise from the surrounding computer hardware, plus frequent large-level spurious electronic signals quite unlike music, and since I tend to leave things powered on around the clock, a straightforward Tripath-based digital amplifier with no valves might actually be the more carefree option. Digital amplifiers also consume remarkably little power.

■ Features a special-purpose DAC from C-Media, programmed exclusively for Carot One
■ 96kHz/24-bit DAC audio conversion
■ Remote control operation and direct control of PC media

The Carot One USB DAC PACOLO 2. I rather like the red indicator light — it has a pleasantly retro feel. Curiously, it comes with what looks like a remote control intended for a CD player. It has an analogue input and functions as both DAC and preamp, though I wonder whether the volume control is digital. If it had a TOS-link or coaxial digital input it would be ideal, but unfortunately it turns out to be a USB-only DAC, Mini USB at that.

The Hidden Original: MiuAudio MKTP-2 — The “MiuAudio Modular Mini Series”

Now, having written all of the above, I should mention something — while digging around for this article, I eventually turned up what appears to be the equivalent of the DN-10497… Hong Kong’s MIUTECH’s MiuAudio MKTP-2 (⇒ PDF file and YouTube video). The Carot One FABRIZIOLO equivalent valve headphone amplifier, incidentally, appears to be the MKTP-1. The MKTP-2 and DN-10497 differ in colour, but there are online reports of Shanghai Donya purchases arriving in MiuAudio packaging labelled MKTP-1, so it seems fairly certain.

Miu-tech International Ltd. is a Hong Kong industrial manufacturer, and the MiuAudio Modular Mini Series is their equivalent of the Carot One range. They also produce speakers, full-sized high-end valve amplifiers of various kinds, top-loading CD players, and more — one could reasonably describe them as a Chinese high-end audio brand.

They don’t make much of an appearance in Japan, but in recent years China has been home to a great many audio equipment manufacturers of this kind — there’s DUSSUN, which attracted attention some years back for its OEM work for Mark Levinson’s Red Rose Music, and there’s also SHANLING, among others. It seems that many prominent Western audio brands — for CD players and at times amplifiers as well — have their products designed and manufactured on a commission basis in China, with the brand’s own aesthetic and sound concept, including component selection, incorporated into the process.

《The Carot One TITTA — a canal-type earphone described as the ideal match for Carot One products — and its successor, the Super TITTA, are stylish Italian earphones in blue and carrot orange. These earphones appear to be a different model from anything in the Miu-tech earphone line. Reviews on Kakaku.com are highly positive. With an attractive price to boot, the TITTA is currently the CarotOne product I want most.》

Miu-Tech was founded in 2004, and the MKTP-2 was released in 2009. The YouTube video of a room recording of the Miuaudio MKTP-2 linked earlier is dated 01/11/2009 as well. So in terms of history, they predate the Italian OpenItem company by some five years — making them the senior manufacturer, or perhaps the original contract maker. My tentative reading of the situation is that the Carot One Series represents that relatively obscure product, reworked with new aesthetic design for European and Japanese markets and modified in various ways — designed and commercialised in Italy, manufactured in China. All speculation, of course. But I was genuinely left a little unsatisfied on the question of which came first, the Miutech Modular Mini or the Carot One Series — which is the OEM of which, and which is the original, in terms of timeline… (　³△３ ).｡o

MiuAudio / Miutech products apparently turn up occasionally at e-earphone as well, and under their original model numbers at that — see the e-earphone official blog. Keeping an eye on that channel might eventually turn up a MKTP-2 or MKTP-1 — or it might not.

This fluffy, idol-themed bit of content was a fun little detour.

↑ Available for streaming on Amazon and e-onkyo music. Once you start listening, you won’t be able to stop — yes, “Ninjin Loves you yeah!!” is on there! The Macross Frontier CD — I naturally own it.

～ Summary ～

To wrap up: if you’re deliberately aiming for a budget audio setup and are happy to set aside brand considerations, MiuAudio is a valid option. In Japan, however, availability is limited and warranties are short. Going by the reviews of the Carot One Series, purchasing outside of authorised channels seems to come with its own hurdles. For those who are simply drawn to the orange enclosure and find the Italian concept appealing, and who have the budget to match — the Carot One remains the straightforward choice, as ever. The price difference, warranty included, is not really enough to be a problem. And above all — in the spirit of the Italian male sensibility, perhaps — life becomes rather dull the moment you can no longer spend a little money on looking good without thinking twice about it, don’t you think!