paully

Thought some might find this interesting. http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=142025

I have never seen those amps before. They look like they could be a lot of fun. Wow. A little too rich for my blood at the moment unfortunately.

Listen to what this guy is saying. I bought a Dynaco ST-70. Fantastic, wonderful amp. Now, after an additional $1K that I put into it replacing old parts. I thought I was getting a deal on a $300 amplifier but these old amps always have something that needs to be replaced. Unless you can solder think buying new. There are plenty of options in the under $1,000 range that should suffice. If you can't solder you can still buy used equipment that is just a few years old that you can ship to a tech but vintage is a whole nother animal. But if you can solder, or have someone around who can help you figure it out, the best deals are easily in vintage and kit equipment.

My Dynaco came with some well used Tesla El34 tubes. I have bought many others since then and the only ones that compared were the JJ KT77. If I had the cash, and if I were still using my Dynaco (I may go back, that remains to be seen) old stock Tesla is definitely what I would purchase. Failing that the KT77 tubes seemed like an incredible value. I can't compare them to Mullard but I remember the Tesla being incredible.

I am actually a little bitter over his contentment, have so little contentment myself. Ack!

Color me surprised but given the effeciency of the Heresys 2 watts should be enough to push them to ear drubbing levels much less 6v6 in a push pull configuration. Something is going on here and it is not the theoretical power of the amplifier which should be around 15 watts. It is either not pushing out enough juice because something is wrong or there is something else in the chain that is screwed up.

Interesting thing is I have my amps going into my Chorus II and have too much bass. And when I played 2 watts into Mark's Khorns I didn't notice any bass was lacking. I wonder if auditioning another SET amp is in order. Wish you were nearby, I would bring mine over. A powered sub is always an option.

What does a pair cost?

Though I suppose if I have to $200 may not be reasonable.

Ok, thinking it over I may decide to buy an aftermarket crossover and skip the whole nightmare of figuring out what to do myself. Thinking $200 max and thinking it will have to be a Christmas present. But might as well start researching. I would like to know what is available and what is involved. We posted about this before but I can't find the darn posts. What caps are being used, do we reuse the iron that is in the current crossover or replace, is it a redesigned crossover or better parts...? Would like to get a feel for what my options are. I think Chris and Dean are the two options, correct?

It does help and I appreciate it. I haven't done a crossover though I have built multiple amps and preamps. I will also have an electrical engineer here to help me out with the build who has been doing this sort of thing for 30 years. I will forward what you have written to him and then decide if it is really something I want to tackle. I will let you know if I decide not to rick screwing it up as I want to improve the sound not break my new speakers.

I have decided to go ahead and move the crossover onto an outboard crossover and put in new capacitors. For the moment I am going to just use Solen and try boutique caps later. I will use screw down terminals so I can swap capacitors in and out. But I wanted to check some things. How hard is it to get the crossover out? Apparently it is inside the speaker on the back of the piece with the speaker terminals. I can see that I can just unscrew it but is the piece of metal glued to the speaker or does it just come out? Am I going to damage anything when removing it? How hard is it to get the other items off of the actual crossover that I want to save such as the transformer, inductors, etc Those appear to be glued on from the picture I have seen and I dont want to replace those if I can save them but wonder how much heat I need to put into it to get the glue to liquefy. Anyone who has done this with a Chorus or Forte I would appreciate some pointers before I destroy anything.

ooh! ooh! Look at the pretty McInstoshs'! Very nice.

is simply to swap it to another position, preferably on the other channel. If the glow follows the tube you've got a bad tube. If the other tube glows in the socket where the tube is now glowing it is the amp and trouble shooting begins.

Bottlehead Foreplay III and a Seduction might work. They are seperates but about as good as it gets for the money IMO and close to your budget.

I already have 10 with my Bottlehead preamp and Stereo 70. The Bottlehead 300B Paramount amp I have coming uses expensive tubes. I didn't want more variables, added expense, and I didn't feel like I wanted to deal with more tube rolling so I steared away from a tube dac and tubed phono preamp. I just didn't want to deal with the search for the right tube and all the worry about the sound quality variables inherent in tubes beyond my amp and preamp.

Budd of mine who sold audio gear used to say that a turntable sounds 95% like its needle. I bought a cheap(er) turntable and spent more on the needle. I think the advice of sticking with this turntable for now and getting a new needle is sound. Might want to spend a bit more on it though. And if he can find a local dealer who sells needles they should have no problem with him bringing his turntable in and putting it on for him. Next step is the vacuum record cleaner! That will make a huge difference.

Doing the speakers first and then the amplifier is the right way to go about it. There have got to be some people near you with a 300B amplifier that would either bring them to you or let you bring your speakers to them. You can post at the following websites and ask and see what happens. I don't know if Wright has a forum. http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/set/bbs.html http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/bottlehead/bbs.html http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/DIYHiFi/bbs.html And I am sure there are others.

We have only heard two watts coming out of a 6DN7 tube on the Klipsch. I have listened to various amps and speakers but haven't listened to too many amps on Klipsch other than our various iterations of the Dynaco and the S.E.X. amp. When I get my Paramounts maybe another trip is in order to listen to 8-9 watts on some 300B's which is a whole nother animal? It may be a while with the school year keeping me busy but it is something to think about.

Being able to switch between amps is a pretty nice idea, I wonder ho hard that would be to implement in a Bottlehead Foreplay. There are times I bet that I wish I could switch over to push-pull but won't bother. I actually agonized over the decision wondering if I was spending money needlessly I love my Dynaco so much. After I get some time with the Paramounts I will post what I think.

I really am looking forward to getting my own 300B amplifier.

Great. And I understand that you have nothing but positive things to say about their service. And I have never dealt with them just read posts. That should be taken into account.

Color me embarassed. I thought you were referring to the Moth Cicada and I couldn't understand how three watts would clip with it. I get it now. I also have a Dynaco that I am also running into my Chorus II (25 watts) with very satisfactory results and have been happy with the increased authority of that topology for years though I have been going another direction lately, sometimes I wonder if I am not doing for the sheer joy of something new. There are a lot of intelligent people that will make an argument for SET, Push-Pull, or solid state as the case may be based upon the strengths of those mediums and their own preferences. I don't think I am locked in any way (I hope). The funny thing I find is the most vehement and dismissive, to me at least, seem to be the solid state guys (some). The SET guys usually admit SET's faults (when is the last time you heard a SET guy tell you that the bass of a SET amplifier can't be beat?) and recognize the strengths of the other topologies, they just know what they like best. The original post was about what SET amp might work so I chimed in with my thoughts. My thoughts are based a great deal on my visit with Mark and listening with my S.E.X. amp on his marvelous speakers where I came away so impressed and overawed that I immidiately bought the best Klipsch I could afford (and honestly, that I had a snowball chance of fitting in my room). I don't have my Paramounts yet so I will have to wait to weigh in on how those sound though I bet they sound great. Its all horses for courses regardless.

For home theatre I wouldn't even begin to give advice. I am not into it being purely two channel stereo for listening and T.V. being something I do sporadically. I am surprised that you would hear the amp clip with the Moth. I am not completely familiar with that speaker but given what I had assumed about its effeciency, and my own experience with 2 watts into high effeciency, that does surprise me. We were listening on the Klipsch at really high levels and I heard nothing but sweet music. But if you heard it, it probably was happening. I have been told I listen at pretty low levels compared to others and being over at Mark's I believe it. I find it physically painful to listen at the levels I have heard numerous other people listen at so dynamics, not clipping, is usually my main concern at low levels. As far as Welborne goes, I have never done business there but would just caution somebody to go read the posts about getting orders filled and make up their own mind taking your post into account as well. A lot has been posted recently. The products have a good reputation for sound, no argument there at all. That is not where my concern was directed.

and maybe audiogon. They come up frequently and one will be near you eventually. I got mine from ebay and they appear to be in very good shape.