smokarz Posted November 17, 2009 Share Posted November 17, 2009 hi all, after acquiring a pair of Cornwalls a few weeks back, i have been reading a bit on tube amps, and it seems the Scott 299b and 340b are the preferred choices. the problem is these seem to be fairly rare. ebay is selling them from anywhere from $300-$500 but there are so few of them are there any other tube amps that work well with the klipsch heritage, but are more readily available? i am hoping to spend $300 for a used one, if that is possible. thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sheltie dave Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 In one of life's donk moments, plan on spending twice what you buy a tube amp to get it up and running properly. If you go cheap initially, you probably will end up spending more than if you buy a restored, working unit. A unit restored by Craig - NOSValves - is the gold standard in many tube circles. There are a couple other one man shops that are also quite good.The Scotts, Fishers, Pilot, Sherwood and Heathkit lines all offer good to great models for folks starting out that can provide years of enjoyment, IF you do the right thing at the start. If you need to save money throughout, hit the garage and estate sales, get a cheap unit, and spend the money on a good warranteed restoration and tubes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Groomlakearea51 Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 Great advice Sheltie; great advice! [Y] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wuzzzer Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 I've been eyeing these amps, mainly because a fellow Klipsch owner and forum member has at least one and said he was very impressed by them: http://cgi.ebay.com/YAQIN-VK-2100-Integrated-Valve-Tube-Power-Amplifier-amp_W0QQitemZ270484561553QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item3efa22de91 Waste of money or?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cut-Throat Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 I've been eyeing these amps, mainly because a fellow Klipsch owner and forum member has at least one and said he was very impressed by them: http://cgi.ebay.com/YAQIN-VK-2100-Integrated-Valve-Tube-Power-Amplifier-amp_W0QQitemZ270484561553QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item3efa22de91 Waste of money or?? Probably a waste of money, because if you buy it and if you like it you'll upgrade to a better tube amp down the road. If you don't like it, you wasted your money immediately. Your cheapest route to a system that you'll live with for a long time, is to audition as many audiophile's systems as possible (for relatively no money, except gas) and decide the direction you'd like to go. Like the audition at my place that I have offered you before. Heck I'll even provide free beer, wine etc. - Like I said before -- It takes a lot of money in this hobby, to figure out that you don't need to spend a lot of money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Invidiosulus Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 I've been eyeing these amps, mainly because a fellow Klipsch owner and forum member has at least one and said he was very impressed by them: http://cgi.ebay.com/YAQIN-VK-2100-Integrated-Valve-Tube-Power-Amplifier-amp_W0QQitemZ270484561553QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item3efa22de91 Waste of money or?? I have no idea how those actually sound but,They are not really a tube amplifier are they? More like a tube pre-amp and a somewhat cheap solid state amp. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russ69 Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 Sorry to nit pick but it's easier if we all talk the same language. A Scott 299 is an integrated amp right? I see threads all the time where the word amp is used for a receiver, lets all get on the same page, an amp is a basic amp, either mono or multichannel. A integrated amp has control features (i.e. volume) and a receiver has a tuner. Anyway a cheap integrated amp you might look at is the lower level Jolida, mine sounds fairly nice. Thanx, Russ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smokarz Posted November 18, 2009 Author Share Posted November 18, 2009 yes, sorry about the lack of clarifications. an "integrated" tube amp is what i am after. perhaps i just need to be patience and wait for something to pops up on the garage sale section or audiogon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Dubay Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 I would say that looking to spend about 2x that would put you in a much higher level of quality. If low wattage is not a problem there are new kit style amps in the $500 to $600 range that would you get you started into valves nicely. Dyankit makes a nice 17wpc stereo amp http://www.dynakitparts.com/store/product.aspx?id=1 a clone of the old dynaco amps, and a $1,000 can put you into a 60 wpc amplifier kits such as the one in the thread here in the forms http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/t/126810.aspx. You can then look to upgrade in the future and recoup some of your outlay by selling them and upgrading. Or better yet, just start a collection! I started my quest for valve nirvana on a $130 cheapie amplifier kit, which blew away my solid state reciever sonically, just very light on watts and lacking low frequencies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevinmi Posted November 19, 2009 Share Posted November 19, 2009 Buy a kit and do it yourself. Not only will you have the pride of doing it yourself, you will have an amp that is made from brand new components instead of 60 year old electronics. And with a kit, you can have an inexpensive amp instead of a cheap amp. If you can't build it yourself, you can usually get one built for a reasonable amount of money from the supplier or many other qualified people. Why waste your money on a Chinese amp with questionable build quality when you can get more for your money with a new amp kit or a good rebuild of a classic amp. I know that there are some very respectable Chinese products out there (I own a Shanling CD player), but if you don't know what to look for, you could end up with something that is sub-par for the price. There are great deals out there, but you have to know what to look for. Buying an old Scott or something similar off e-Bay for a cheap price doesn't mean it's going to sound nearly as good as the ones you hear from people on this forum. If it hasn't been gone through by and experienced and knowledgeable person such as Craig at NOS valves or Terry DeWick, you probably are paying for a "project" that will need to be revamped to bring it to it's full pontential. The best advice, which has been said before, is try to listen to other people's systems to get an idea of what things sound like in the real world. Try to find the hosts that offer free beer and wine, and maybe a cookout! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
papashawn Posted November 19, 2009 Share Posted November 19, 2009 Kevin, I read about your ST-120 amp kit build in the "New Toy - Tubes in the House" post. It looks fantastic, great job!! It really peaked my interest in possibly building one of these kits myself. The only experience I have with soldering was replacing the caps and resistors in my KG2.5's. I think it was a total of 4 pieces for each crossover. It was relatively simple, once I did some practice and watched some tutorial videos. I think I could tackle the amp kit, but I have a question about the price difference. One of these Dynaco kits that are all brand new parts, while looking (and sounding I'm sure) awesome, they do cost quite a bit. $480 for the cheapest kit, and it's only 17.5 watts per channel, without any tubes. The Bob Latino ST-70 kit (35 watts per channel) with tubes is $695 + shipping. And once the kit is finally built, you still only have an amp, not an integrated amp as the OP is looking for. So now he would need a preamp of some kind, tube or ss, before being able to listen to anything, and he's already out over $700. You can get a fully refurbished Scott or similar for $500-$600 if you look around (there are several on ebay that I posted about in the garage sale forum as a price check, have a look). While I don't consider this "cheap", it still seems like a pretty good deal considering the price of going all new and not chinese! It sure is a blessing and a curse having this audio affliction, isn't it? You want the best for your particular budget, and no matter how much you spend, there are literally thousands of other options just out of your price range. Even if $100,000 is your amp budget, there's more to be had! [:|] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dude Posted November 19, 2009 Share Posted November 19, 2009 I will take two of those at 150,000.00 please. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audio Flynn Posted November 19, 2009 Share Posted November 19, 2009 In one of life's donk moments, plan on spending twice what you buy a tube amp to get it up and running properly. If you go cheap initially, you probably will end up spending more than if you buy a restored, working unit. A unit restored by Craig - NOSValves - is the gold standard in many tube circles. There are a couple other one man shops that are also quite good.The Scotts, Fishers, Pilot, Sherwood and Heathkit lines all offer good to great models for folks starting out that can provide years of enjoyment, IF you do the right thing at the start. If you need to save money throughout, hit the garage and estate sales, get a cheap unit, and spend the money on a good warranteed restoration and tubes. It is an amortization investigation. The NOS Valves rebuilt LK-48 Scott integrated I sold 2 years ago I maybe had 700 USD invested and sold for less than 500 USD. It will perform very well for years of service. To have an awesome integrated with active pre amp stage for less than 100 USD per year cost is a good value. Any new tube amp will have no active preamp and no phono section. Vintage may take a little work on the owners part to secure a competent rebuild but the features cannot be matched in new equipment for 4 times the price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blvdre Posted November 20, 2009 Share Posted November 20, 2009 Wuzzer, you're a bastard. It took me a few seconds.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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