NOSValves Posted November 8, 2002 Share Posted November 8, 2002 Ryan, Wow that was some first post !! How did you happen in my little hiding place ?? Kudret did you out him up to this !! Everyone, Buy any way everyone this is Ryan . I know him from the HH Scott web sight and list server. He has helped me a number of times when I get stuck with a problem with a amp. He is very knowledgable in Tube audio repair and has been doing it for many years !! Ryan, We need to get together on the phone about your favorite amplifier. It is about to drive me insane !!! Its a member of this forums and I think he would like me to finally get the bugger fixed. I'm about to say the heck with it and send it to you to finish up !!! Craig Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kudret Posted November 8, 2002 Share Posted November 8, 2002 Craig, Actually I was as pleasantly surprised as you are to see Ryan posting here - I am glad he did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazman Posted November 8, 2002 Share Posted November 8, 2002 I've got my 2 liter 1973 Alfa Romeo GTV tucked away in my garage for the last seven years. All this car talk is going to make me put it back on the road and dust all of you off, that is as long as I don't have to outhorse that big block Vette for too many straight, flat, miles. I know many don't have high regard for Alfa's, but this one runs like an angry banshee and has surprised many. Klipsch out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOSValves Posted November 8, 2002 Share Posted November 8, 2002 Kudret, I just talked to him about a 222D I'm working on he sure is a nice and Knowledgeable Tube Tech. Craig Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Robinson Posted November 8, 2002 Author Share Posted November 8, 2002 Well my father (just passed on) was a major car head ... His first car that I could recall was a 1956 Alpha Romeo ... He used to say that "Italian cars are like Italian women ... They're great when they're young but they don't age very well ..." He obviously never met Sharon M from Lodi, NJ ... Jeez, she was smokin' in a sweater at age 40. I digress. All I remember from that car was that he always had its hood up. I think that thing ATE exhaust valves for breakfast .... and it would burn your feet if you went for a ride in any season other than winter. He was a Princeton (scholarship) engineer and was always grumbling that all the world needed was a good "sodium-filled exhaust valve" (were you listening, Ferdinand?) for better heat dissipation. He and PWK would have been major pals. My first amp was his home-built 5W tube-ster ... A year ago I started relating what I was learning from this forum ... I mentioned "SET" and off he went about great tube amps that they would build "on weekends" ... God I miss that man. Here's what his car progression was while I was young ... I did a lot of time with him in the summer with the top down ... 1956: Alpha Romeo 1961: MG 1963: Mercury Comet (kids were of age but the rear window went down) 1965: Mustang (MY 64) ... 289 w/ 3 on the floor, heater and radio optional He put about a gazillion miles on the Mustang ... I got it in 1977 with a couple hundred thou ... but you could still see yourself in the doorsills (highly polished). Sold it to a frat bro who had it a week and wrapped it around a tree. First time I cried over a car. Since then, my rides have been: Mercedes 240D (425,000 miles) GMC Yukon (145,000 miles) Chrysler 300M Special (5,000) Lots of company cars in between (Chevy Celebrity (I convulse), Ford Taurus, Dodge Intrepid, Chrysler Concorde (world's best livery car)) ... I long for German once again .... Probably M5 when I have time and money. Or a really clean "antique" Bavaria or C5. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clipped and Shorn Posted November 8, 2002 Share Posted November 8, 2002 Jazman, I think I had that same Alfa Romeo, that car can outcorner anything I have ever driven. Great little car and plenty fast. I eventually sold mine to the son of artist William T. Wiley. c7s Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Mobley Posted November 8, 2002 Share Posted November 8, 2002 Ryan, Good info. You'd be more than welcome to stop by over at Chevelle Tech Forums some time. Lots of good guys over there, and loads of Chevelle experience. Check out the Engine section, along with Performance. Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lynnm Posted November 8, 2002 Share Posted November 8, 2002 Re: Alfa Romeo My first Alfa was a 1969 1300 cc. Guilia Sedan - Gorgeous !! In the first 3 years my only extra costs were a burned out headlight bulb and a burned out interior lamp. Things went rapidly downhill from there unfortunately. The next was a 2 Litre sedan. Mercifully I cannot rember the exact model - The less said the better ! That farging thing was in the ER for as many hours as it was on the street. I am a Canadian living near Calgary Alberta which means that on rare occasions in winter the temperature will descend well into the regions that most Americans assume are the norm year round in our Great Frozen North. In any event ;- ( I slogged out to the Alfa on a - 40 morn and fired her up. The block heater had done its job and my little I - Tie roared to life without a whimper but the oil pressure guage stayed at 0 and the temperature guage rose to operating temperature in a New Yawk minute. Well I ain't necessarilly always the brightest tack in the box but something seemed amiss to me and I shut her down PDQ !! I called the dealer and his service manager said that this was a common problem with cold climate Alfa's. I could have the little b*gger towed in and they would be happy to correct the problem but the fix would cost C$ 800.00. After I quit spitting coffee I asked two questions: 1.) WADDDAA FARK ?? 2.) Will the fix guarantee that the problem will not recur ? The answers ? Re: # 1 Unlike most makers the engineers at AR decided to have the crankshaft used in their engines to be cast as a solid block and have the oil journals drilled in after the fact. This unfortunately requires that the entry holes in the crank be plugged after the machining has occurred. Even more unfortunately Alfa engines exposed to temperatures below about -30 degrees had a problem because the plugs and the crankshafts were of slightly different mettalurgic character and the plugs would shrink a couple of thousands of an inch more than the engine block and therefore when the very cold and therefore essentially mollasses-like oil hit the plugs they would be pushed out. This resulted in the unlubricated engine heating up in the aforementioned New Yawk minute because the oil was simply dumped back into the pan rather than being circulated to the places where lubrication was required. RE: #2 Errr - Umm NO! I had the problem fixed and put the car up for sale via the dealer. It was sold to a fellow who has a heated garage and the last I heard he had used it for the last 10 years w/o problems. I still miss that car but it cured my Alfa addiction. I hope Noone ever finds a way to cure my Klipsch Jones though. I am having way too much fun with my stereo and my tunes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobile homeless Posted November 9, 2002 Share Posted November 9, 2002 Dont even get me started on Italian... heh. I never owned any Alfas but was laden with FIATs! My first car was a Rallye modified 1600cc FIAT 124 Special TC. You see the 1400 version in every useless Russian movie except this little beast had no bumpers with the holes glassed over. It had the 1600 FIAT Double-Overhead Cam with a single 2 barrel Weber and a straight pipe exhaust. I loved the sound of that beast when it got over 5500rpm. Hitting 6000 sounded thick and solid...too bad you were still going about 40mph...heh. IT was actually a fun car to drive with Bilsteins and Cromodora wheels. I then had a 72 FIAT 124 Sport Spider, again with all bumpers removed and holes glassed. The cars were much maligned for always breaking down but actually the engine was suprisingly robust. Dont mention the body. I dont think there was a car that rusted as bad as the early FIATs besides the Karman built BMW 3.0CS, a beautiful car but as soon as you took it outside your heated garage, it started to rust before you very eyes. The little FIAT 124 Sport Coupe was another sleeper. But Edmond, you never told me you had a Alfa GTV. This is very neat, if running. I love the shape - like a 124 couple with more style and on steroids. Send it over here if you arent wanting it! kh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazman Posted November 9, 2002 Share Posted November 9, 2002 mobile, I've had too many happy, fast miles logged in the car to part with it. Unlike some of the older model that Chris and some others may know, this model and year does have in stock trim, sodium filled exhaust valvles, limited slip diff, Bosch mechanical direct port fuel injection, racing headers, among the standard goodies like all aluminum head, block, tranny, dual overhead cams(chain driven, not belt), 5 speed all syncro box, molly coated gears, etc, to which I added an electronic variable distributor(no points to change), a higher lift/duration cam from an earlier 1750 engine. I can get 30 MPG while doing 85-90 miles per hour all day long. I am however, very happy to no longer regularly see the California Highway Patrol and Nevada Highway Patrol in my mirrors. The car always begs to be driven fast, and usually is, and that's why I keep it off the road, locked up. BTW, I traded a 1953 Gullietta Spider for this car. I bought the little 1300 Spider for 5 or $600, with the engines head off the block and many parts in boxes from a guy who never got past square one on a head gasket job. I turned it into a very sweet running auto before trading for the GTV. That's my story on it. It's one of six Alfas I've owned and driven. I also still have a 1979 2 liter Sprint GT, earlier models were called Alfettas. I will eventually sell it and get a V6 engined GT just for fun on weekends. Klipsch out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOSValves Posted November 9, 2002 Share Posted November 9, 2002 Is this some kind of comspiracy to drowned out are favorite Scott EICO debate LOL !!!!!!!!! Pretty cool guys !! Craig Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrot Posted November 9, 2002 Share Posted November 9, 2002 Which one of these cars had the best stock amplifier? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobile homeless Posted November 9, 2002 Share Posted November 9, 2002 Amplifiers? heh.... We dont need no stinkin' amplifiers! You have to listen to THE ENGINE! We're purists, remember? Indeed. Craig, still no luck on the ASUSA A-4 Schematic. I had to actually write the company to get another one several years ago, but now they are completely out of business. I know of one other person that has it and I might have to write him. I am thinking of going Hexfreds for the rectification, PIO coupling caps, and ELNA or oils PS cap filtering. This thing has some BIG output iron rivaling early EICO HF-87 in size. kh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOSValves Posted November 9, 2002 Share Posted November 9, 2002 Mobile, This sounds like a project I would really love to get involved in. Play with some expensive parts and see what it produces for us heh ! What is the rectification setup on the amp now ? Craig Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobile homeless Posted November 9, 2002 Share Posted November 9, 2002 I had sent you two pics of the amplifier, one of the exterior and one of the wiring. If interested (and I recommend giving it a read), here is the VTV review of the AS-USA A-4 amp. Be patient on download as the review is two pages scanned. The text is a bit small, unfortunately. VTV ASUSA A-4 Amplifier Review by Charles Kittleson kh ps- Simple SS silicon diodes currently for rect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOSValves Posted November 9, 2002 Share Posted November 9, 2002 Kelly, I really like the point to point wiring. To bad it looks like there isn't enough room to stuff a tube rectifier in there somewhere !! Craig Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyKubicki Posted November 10, 2002 Share Posted November 10, 2002 Hi Chris, Sorry to hear of your father's passing. Since then, my rides have been: Mercedes 240D (425,000 miles) GMC Yukon (145,000 miles) Chrysler 300M Special (5,000) Lots of company cars in between (Chevy Celebrity (I convulse), Ford Taurus, Dodge Intrepid, Chrysler Concorde (world's best livery car)) ... I long for German once again .... Probably M5 when I have time and money. Or a really clean "antique" Bavaria or C5. You ONLY got 425K miles from the 240D!? 4 Wheel independent suspension, a comfy ride, minimal upkeep, wasn't this a great car? Other than the fact that a Rambler station wagon can blow your doors off from a red light (you would surely catch up and pass up that Rambler on a freeway). My favorite was the 300SD. Big body comfort with the reliability and (slightly) higher power of a 5 cylinder turbo diesel. But alas, the diesel did make me turn up the CD player to drown out the clanking! I would LOVE to have a newer E320 Diesel! We did switch to a 94 gas style E320. What's funny about the Mercedes and the stereos they came stock with is that the earlier Beckers sounded aweful! The first decent sounding system was in my '94. All the previous ones were worthless! Hi Ryan! Will ya fix my 222D so I can get it on the tube-mania and see what it's all about??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Robinson Posted November 12, 2002 Author Share Posted November 12, 2002 Andy, just getting back on line after a few days moving the office. Yipes. Well I have to say that the reason I sold that 240 was easy ... The body was in pretty good shape, the engine was all original ... but the interior was going to hell. A year in Arizona, four in Colorado, one in California, three in NJ, and what the hey ... dashboard was cracked, the seats were caving in ... but the car still ran. Paid $11K for it new, sold it for $5K, got over 400K miles on it, pretty good deal. The guy I sold it to replaced the seats and dash, drove it another 200K miles and sold it again for $3K. Must have close to a million miles on it by now, 25 years later. Sure, the car couldn't get out of its own way, but we had a lot of fun in it. For starters, we could go (easily) 425 miles between fill-ups. Secondly, on flat ground (i.e., Tucson to NJ), I'd set the cruise at 73 mph and it was ROCK SOLID ... You could really dial it in. Not sexy transportation, but transportion that was reliable. I DO remember, however, doing a 24 hour trip from Tucson to Denver in '78 ... Was running 30-weight in the desert and camped out for the night at "Top of the World" (our fav camping spot near I-70 at about 9K feet) ... Woke up in the morning only to find that the engine wouldn't budge. Since the oil pan had a skid protector on it, we just threw a few logs under the pan and got the thing toasty warm ... We were on our way in about an hour And did I mention cooking dinner until the hood? Another thread I guess. These days I'm in a little more of a hurry ... lengthy commutes require a little more hustling on the way ... so I'm driving a little more of a torquey ride. But I still love German. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Robinson Posted November 13, 2002 Author Share Posted November 13, 2002 Here is what I just posted on the MMF-7 thread ... Please read or skip to the last few paragraphs about the Eico/Scott comparo ... -------------------------------------------------- There is a happy ending to this long thread ... Got the replacement MMF-7 from Walter Liederman yesterday ... Box arrived at the office in great shape, which is always a good start. I got it home and after taking the lad to school this morning, set it up. It would appear that the two TT's I received were packed differently. This one had the cartridge guard on it, which Walter secured with a small piece of tape to keep it in place for the trip. He told me that these "fall off in shipment" quite frequently, and he's talked to Mr. Hall about including some tape prior to shipment. Hopefully this will become part of the SOP at the factory, because they do little good (and maybe some harm) bouncing around in the box. I also noticed that the DC motor was wrapped in plastic, and on the first shipment it wasn't. I'm not going to draw any conclusions from all this, but suffice it to say Walter stood behind his word and the second TT was pristine and intact. I set it up based on the included instructions and MH's supplemental documentation, which was a BIG help. The second time you set one of these up, it goes a lot faster as well. I leveled the table using (very carefully) a long bubble level. The bubble in the window on the table actually is centered as well, but there is more room for error using that as a primary indicator. I checked the cartridge/arm with the protractor, and it looked perfect. The VTA is dead on as well so no adjustment was necessary. The azimuth looked fine as well. I got out my "donut" and put it on the acrylic table. Sure does look like the stuff I put under my throw rugs, for sure . Looks nice, actually. Then I went to my modest LP collection and grabbed SRV ... went to Tin Pan Alley and cranked it up. Nothing. Jeez. I remembered that I could hook the interconnects to the CD inputs on the amp and tried that (looking for some output). Zip. Hmmm. Now I'm really doubting myself. Table looks perfect and the room is quiet. Anyway, I pulled off the interconnects and left the grounding wire in place. I got a pair of Kimber PBJ's and hooked those up. Put the LP on again and voila!! Beautiful sound !!! Could have been the Bermuda Triangle. I'm sick as a dog today, coughing and running a fever. Who knows. As Walter calls it, another return from me was going to be a POU. Product Outperforms User. Sounds like a nice way to call someone a bozo ... and probably deservedly. I write this listening to Miles' KOB. I have the volume knob up to about the 2:00 position and I have to say that vinyl really brings out the best in this amp. It beats the heck out of the CD as a source, although I generally like my CDP a lot, esp. for vocals and woodwinds. I have to add that I hear none the congestion I heard and wrote about in my Eico HF-81 vs Scott LK-48. The music is just pouring out of the Klipschorns and FILLING the room with sweetness. I just dialed the volumen knob over to 10, and a LOT of sound but no noticeable distortion. Of course, the music I'm listening to now is different that the CDP was rolling out ... but I've got to reevaluate the digital source a bit. Some tube rolling may be required, who knows. I just never heard it with the Eico. Anyway, since break-in on the table is required, I'm just thrilled with the sound. I know it's only going to get better and I'm one happy camper with lots of vinyl to revisit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JCturboT Posted November 13, 2002 Share Posted November 13, 2002 ---------------- On 11/13/2002 1:34:24 PM Chris Robinson wrote: -------------------------------------------------- Could have been the Bermuda Triangle. I'm sick as a dog today, coughing and running a fever. Who knows. As Walter calls it, another return from me was going to be a POU. Product Outperforms User. Sounds like a nice way to call someone a bozo ... and probably deservedly. ---------------- Chris, Why don't you keep the Scott for a couple more days.Its miserable out there right now and I have other amplifiers to hold me over-hate to see you getting even sicker. Glad to see the phono section is as good as you say (even though I'll never use it). Friday or Saturdays good for me. Let me know, Jeff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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