Painful Reality

Unless something went really wrong in the transport, he probably inserted the 2A3 the wrong way. The Wright uses chinese wafer type socket that are not idiot proof. Sadly for you too many idiots roam free on this earth.

Those who claim the Moondogs are 2.5 W wouldn't know their *** from an hole in the ground. Now is there a big difference between 2.5W and 3.5 W? It's another story... End of story. Don't go for an averaged value. The Moondog, if unmodified. is 3.5 W. If used with KR tubes, the famous "transistor in a bottle" POS, these might even go closer to 4.5W (one might be happier with a Krell, you'll get 300W for the same type of sound). BTW, your asking price is more than fair!

I don't know. He washed them? Most people do from time to time. I've heard of an emperor that had none though.

Bump... I'm still looking for black grill. Anyone with some left?

So do I. Actually I'd be pretty much suspicious of the quality control of a transformer winder if you would need to use consecutive serial numbers to get identical OPTs... But this being said, some form of DCR matching can be done by the manufacturers in the case of step up transformers or other pice of irons with windings made out of really fine wires. But as you said, it's really not the case with OPTs.

Warning no.1 Better be sure there is some kind of valid speaker protection with an OTL. If not, a tube failure might eat drivers for lunch. Warning no.2 OTL are be far the most "matching" sensitive amps (especially the cheap ones). With the right speakers they sounds really good. With the wrong speakers, they will sound piss poor. Personally I think a "non Alked" Heritage might be a difficult load for a typical Futterman style OTL.

Roy's upgrade is quite good. Unless you want to use it with an active preamp... This mods makes for the Dyna TO HAVE A LOT OF FREAKIN' GAIN. Gain is actually up to the wazoo, especially with 12AT7. My Dyna have this upgrade board and I'm rather satisfied with it. It's a fun amp with plenty of toe tapping factor. Not the last word in "connecting with the soul of music" but quite nice to play those old Led Zep records.

Never underestimate the extent of my lazyness... Actually, I spent some time listening to my CW with my Eico HF-81, I decided not to bother. My listening time is less and less, while being splitted on two radically different systems. The CW/Eico combo in the current form does what it has to do perfectly. And there is way to many screws on the back of a CW...

From my experience the 6C45-Pi will prefer a preamp with a low impedance. In my case best results were achieved with an output impedance of 600 ohms or lower.

It was a concern for me before I bought them. But I said to myself "what the heck... for 150 why not give it a try" Then I read your post reporting your experience. Since swapping tubes or swapping interconnects is a PITA for me, I said to myself "life is too short...". Since it is time to purchase "bike no. 2", this means getting rid of some of the audio surplus piled in my garage.

Sold...

New, never even tried! I'm just to lazy to install these. Beside, something tells me that the output will be a bit on the high side compared to the rest of my rather old Alnico magnets in my 1968 Cornwall II. Yet another compulsive buy for me... $130 USD including shipping anywhere in USA or Canada. Payment through Paypal only.

Excerpt: Normal advice: Most informed advice is to keep the arm tube roughly parallel to the record surface. In fact, the VTA becomes more correct as the rear of the arm is lowered as much as possible, the limit being when the arm or cartridge touches the record. I've found that a slightly lowered rear arm, gave the best results in my case. But VTA is not something I loose sleep about.

A typical 2A3 OPT will have a primary impedance of 2.5 to 3.5K. A 300B is totally comfortable under these loads. As for the overspec'ed aspect I wouldn't bother with the Electra-Print (I think it's rated for a 100 mA plate current). For a MQ OPT, I wouldn't go higher than 60-70 mA of plate current for the 300B (the DS-025 is rated for 60 mA).

To be more accurate, the nerdy audiophile should have been depicted as "somewhat pudgy around the middle"...

That recording is not one of the best jazz recording but actually one the worst. If music is important for you that is... This POS must have been released as an April fool's joke. The music is awful. The drummer and the bass player could win the award for the worst supporting team. The version of Take 5 makes Kenny G looks like an artist. As far as the recording is concerned, if the goal is to hear a 12 foot long xylophone that goes hard right to hard left in the "stereo picture" this record is for you. Needless to say, you'll feel like your head is 2 inches from the said xylophone.

KR used to make a 6SN7 back then. Put these along the KRrrrrr 2A3 and you'll hear Patricia Barber's recording engineer moving the faders in the control room. Now that is what I call music compared to Patricia Barber pseudo-jazz (although Pat Metheny takes the cup with Kenny G. in the boring pseudo-jazz category).

The KR are way too detailled for my taste. Every recording becomes some sort of a "cymbal show". Nothing wrong with "ultra detail" if one's goal is to play a sonic version of "Where's Waldo" and concentrate hard to hear the little creaking from the bass drum pedal he enjoy so much. KR in that case will be THE tubes to go for. Of course a KRell amp would do as good. As for your question about "black plate", it refers to the color of the plate. RCA had black plate and grey plate (more recent versions). Sylvanias or canadian made GE would be really good to. I agree with Z4 also. The Sovtek are definitively the best bang for the buck available at this time.

Yes. What the KR do best is to "decompose" a piano playing music into felt hammer hitting metallic stings and background noises from feet hitting pedals. Get a pair of RCA 2A3. Black plate if possible. Get them used and "unmatched" from a reliable seller. They should come rather affordable and will last for a lifetime.

KRRRRRR Putting all of these in a beatiful glass glowing package...

To me, and it's a well known fact that I'm heck of a good reference, the KR sounds like a transistor in a bottle. The best sound you'll get from any KR tube is when it is plugged in another one's system, preferably in another state. No other opinion should be considered.

I wouldn't get those together unless the goal is only to hear "sounds out of a pair of speakers". The sound diffraction from the horns will be fucked up all right.

Yep. Crossover annoy the hell out of me in certain types of music, principaly jazz. So much that I'm willing to live with full range drivers with no serious bass to speak of. I feel the bass limitation is a small price to pay compare to the gain you have in the midrange (where most of jazz is). I can't go back to a single system.

The above is a Link to the Wright 2A3 SET Amp and I just want to say to anyone looking at an Amp designed like this that IMHO there are advantages and disadvantages. It is a low sensitivity design which often means when used with high efficiency speaker/system this can be a good thing as far as noise/hum issues. What this design will need to sound it's best though is a Good Pre-Amp to drive the Amp to its full potential. if you try to use a passive pre-amp it will in my experience sound weak(anemic) and for a lack of a better word slow versus when it is driven with a good Pre-Amp. It makes sense. The Wright amps alway have really low gain. So if the preamp is not able to supply enough voltage swing, it will sound rather blah. Definitivively not to be driven with a passive.

Allan, you're right. Jazz in Silhouette is pure genious. Gary you have to admit that the Sun Ra album cover is better than this one.