jtkinney Posted September 10, 2002 Share Posted September 10, 2002 Are there any Heathkit tube amps worthy of consideration? I have some Heath SS equipment that I want to sell, so I watch ebay to check prices. I see Heath tube amps all of the time, but don't know anything about them. Just wondering if something good could be picked up for a bargain. Thanks ------------------ Jim Family Room: 1978 Klipschorns (mains), 1979 La Scalas (rear surrounds), 1978 Heresy's on the way Yamaha RX-V1 Reciever, Yamaha CDC-655 CD Player, Toshiba SD-1200 DVD, Toshiba TN50X81 50" HDTV Bedroom: Yamaha RX-V590, SF-1's Mainsc>s> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOSValves Posted September 10, 2002 Share Posted September 10, 2002 I have a couple Heathkit intergrates they are AA 151's they usually go for about $150 or so on Ebay. There pretty nice amps for the money. They are not audiophile super amps but sound nice all the same. Beware though most of there integrated amps require closely matched output tubes. Both of these amps I have will serverly motorboat without a matched quad of tubes. Also if your into the resto look these are the ticket they look like a 57 chevy dashboard LOL !!!! They also make some nice mono blocks the W4M and W5M are the ones to get from what I have been told. Craig ------------------ HH Scott 299 Amp HH Scott LT-110B Tuner HH Scott P-87 Turn Table JVC JL-F50 Turn Table Sony CDP-CA7ES CD Drive 1985 Walnut Heresey I W/Layne Audio Woofers KSW-15 Subs>c> This message has been edited by NOS440 on 09-10-2002 at 09:48 AM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Klappenberger Posted September 10, 2002 Share Posted September 10, 2002 Jim, Years ago, when my dad was starting out in Stereo, he bought two Heathkit W5M mono amps. He built one and I built the other. They were very good amps. They were finally traded in on a Marantz 8B. You could hear the difference on high level stuff between the two, but the difference was very suttle. The Marantz was slightly better. The speakers he had at the time were Tannoy 15 inch monitor "gold". There's one on eBay right now (Sep 10): http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1378473484 Al K. This message has been edited by Al Klappenberger on 09-10-2002 at 06:28 PM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leok Posted September 10, 2002 Share Posted September 10, 2002 jtkinney, My wife gave me a pair of Heath W5Ms for Christmas a few years ago. In their state of disrepair they were much cleaner than my ss NAD amps and had none of the harshness. They taught me why tubes sound great with efficient (horn) speakers. I completely rebuilt the W5Ms, using the original circuit, and they sounded even better. Since then I've experimented, using the same chassis, with alternate output config. (W5M is class A/B, Ultra-Linear, with global feedback) and am now using class A, triode, no feedback. For input, (original gain and phase splitter were 12AU7 triode with Concertina splitter along with an additional 12AU7 pair of gain/driver stages) I'm now using both sides of a single E88CC with current source as a differential pair, directly driving the KT66 output tubes. Finally, I've replaced the Peerless output transformers with smaller 10W Hammond model because I think the big peerless limited hf performance in a low power no feedback implementation. I believe the circuit changes are worth the effort, but the original design was good. That's a lot of work .. fun for me, but maybe not fun for you. There are better new tube amps, SETs, Push-Pull, Concertina, differential, etc, etc, but they cost a lot of money. The original Heath design still runs circles around most inexpensive ss amps. In the end, I wanted more than the original Heath design could deliver. I think my new design sounds cleaner and has better detail than the original design. It also now only delivers 10W tops. My speakers are Forte-IIs and RF-7s. leok Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtkinney Posted September 10, 2002 Author Share Posted September 10, 2002 Thanks Guys, I thought there was some good Heath equipment, just didn't know which. I own and have owned a lot of Heath Ham and SS audio equipment over the years. While they didn't have some of the bells and whistles of commercial brands, they had solid design and I could work on them. Some of their SS amp designs were plagarized from other top of the line brands like B&K. ------------------ Jim Family Room: 1978 Klipschorns (mains), 1979 La Scalas (rear surrounds), 1978 Heresy's on the way Yamaha RX-V1 Reciever, Yamaha CDC-655 CD Player, Toshiba SD-1200 DVD, Toshiba TN50X81 50" HDTV Bedroom: Yamaha RX-V590, SF-1's Mainsc>s> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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