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Ray, You may find hereby attached, three texts which might be of help... tubes.zip

Nice work Bert!

O.K. Max, I'll give you a call for a meeting in the beginning of next week, if you are available. Have a nice Christmas until then!

Max, Just two more propositions: 1) The AUDIOMECA Romance-Romeo will do the trick for less than EUR 3000 and 2) Do not forget the KUZMAS http://www.kuzma.si which - in my view - might have the best price/performance ratio on the greek market. As a plus, and one should never forget this parameter, both are distributed by people who will back you up no matter what. I speak from experience, here...

Hi, If you like jazz, take a tour of www.maxjazz.com. IMHO, this is a label where recordings and performances are of near stellar quality. Only CD's though...

Hi, One should not forget that SONY bought CBS records (hence their rights on B. Dylan vinyl releases...), a long time ago. If they ever decide to reenter themselves the vinyl market in a big way, they surely can! FYI, some days ago, SONY also acquired MGM studios. But this, of course, is another story...

Cheers, Max! You just happened to write the best description of the Game's atmosphere I've read. Seriously... Have a nice (Hi-Fi and otherwise) winter, ahead.

C&S, There's much instinct involved in choosing, planning and executing a DIY project. I don't say that following one's instinct always leads to success. This is a quite complicated issue in which previous experience and general knowledge of the market (and oneself...) are also involved. Still, it is a sure thing that if a DIY project is successful, you can enjoy the same or even superior performance (rare!) of - equally successful - commercially available items, costing 2-3 times the price of your building blocks. The time you spend on it is not accounted for, of course! Colin, The white things on the capacitors are just felt pads. By the time this photo was taken, I was still voicing the thing, so I had to turn it many times upside-down. The felt pads were installed for scratch protection...

I think Dual Woofers said it: The pride factor is very important for a DIYer, although this means that the project (or mod, for that matter...) has been successful. Now, "successful" is a very tricky word indeed. I have met DIYers who have built electrically correct i.e. working, noiseless gear which sounded rather awful, for some reason. They, then, tried to persuade themselves for some time at least, that this was the best thing since white bread! I have also met many others who, liking a certain vintage component, modified it so much with audiophile components, that the poor thing lost its soul and became something else altogether (at great cost...)! To cut a long story short, DIY is something for people who are curious, like to do things with their hands and - last but not least - are psychologically ready to take the risk of failure and scrap the thing altogether. Or make a cheap first attempt, before seriously indulging in the construction of a project. That's exactly what I did with a tubed phono stage I built lately (see attachment. For more, go to: http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/viewtopic.php?t=10530). Finally, a good DIY project is carefully planned and executed over a rather extended period of time. This, IMHO, is a big part of the pleasure also permitting to avoid mistakes and also to spread the total cost into smaller increments. At the end, an - eventually - expensive - project seems less so. Especially if it provides the joy it is meant to! Just my 2c...

Ki, Electrical situation is same as yours. I do use an isolation (3kV) transformer, though... No hum whatsoever from this or any other amp I'm using. Still I consider myself lucky, as I reckon that this kind of problem can be very tricky indeed!

Alex, You've got mail!

Ki, Supposing that everything is wired correctly, AC balance set and no earth loops in the system the HK should not hum at all. Maybe yours is humming because of potential AC problems. In that case, an isolation transformer might do the trick...

Raptorman, I do not know what kind of speakers you have, but if these are KHorns you will love this amp! As for the mods, I did all of these myself and I would categorize them in 2 groups: 1) Those you must carry out just for your peace of mind, like replacing these selenium rectifiers or paper caps and 2) Those which demonstrably transform the Cit II into a killer amp, like using fresh 12BY7A's (matched in V1,V4), KT90's wired in triode mode and enhancing the capacitance both in the PS and the decoupling of the small tubes. Other mods are, IMHO, the icing in a very nice cake... Any tech can do the job, if you can't wait for Jim...

Jeff, I have personally tried many types of wooden corners but they all "sang". Bass only came on its own when I used about 1' thick marble slabs. Just my 2c...

Sorry Max...The only EL34's I have kicking around are a quartet of JJ's.