jbosborn Posted February 18, 2004 Share Posted February 18, 2004 I've been looking around for a tube pre-amp and stumbed across kelly's description of the EICO and since there was one on Ebay, I thought what the hell. So now I've got one, hooked it up to a Planar 2 and some little paradigm atoms and it sounds pretty great. My question is now What? It's got a little hum, I haven't cracked the case to see what tubes are there or have them checked. Is there something I should do or be careful about with this amp? Power cord looks awfully flimsy and is it a big deal to put in some speaker posts? Where does this little amp stand in the listening hierarchy of antique tube gear? Thanks for any suggestions. jbosborn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lynnm Posted February 18, 2004 Share Posted February 18, 2004 "Where does this little amp stand in the listening hierarchy of antique tube gear?" Just to the left of a Gutenberg Bible ! That amp should be taken/sent to a good tech for recapping and reconditioning. NOS Valves and Ryan Inman are members here and either will do a great job on it. That amp is in the top echelon of vintage amps - especially where humungous power output is not required.It is well worth having it brought up to spec. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daddy Dee Posted February 18, 2004 Share Posted February 18, 2004 jbosborn, Welcome to the forum. You got a neat little amp to check out there. I also stumbled across Mobile Homeless' HF-81 review on the internet and got curious. I've had (well, still have one in the house) three vintage Scott integrated amplifiers that had been rebuilt by Craig (nosvalves) and/or Ryan Inman. And there is no doubt that these are fine amplifiers (and top shelf guys to handle your rebuild work). These amps are well regarded on this forum and other vintage tube gear forums. It is, of course, a subjective preference, but to my ears the HF-81 does it even better. A further disclaimer might state that this may be the "minority report" on the Klipsch forum, but even folks that are the fondest of Scott gear will acknowledge the place of Eico gear in the vintage hall of fame. LynnM has offered some good advice on getting the amp rebuilt. In my very lay understanding of electronics, vintage gear has already exceeded the fair life expectancy of some of it's capacitors. While it still sounds sweet, it would need some work to get it back to spec. IMO one couldn't go wrong with either one of these guys to do excellent and reasonably priced work. I just got my Eico HF-81 back in service this week after having it apart for spiffing up after a Ryan Inman rebuild. It looks about as good as the one Mobile has got on the net site. It is packed with Mullard tubes and sounds fabulous. In fact, it sounds so good I'm giving consideration to the idea of selling my SET gear and using it as the main amp in my system. One suggestion, if you want to give it a good cleaning and repaint the case, etc... take care of your cosmetics before sending it off for rebuild. Then when you get it back all in spec, it will be ready to go. It is a little more work to spiff up when you have to be careful to work around the new elements and fresh soldered connections. Enjoy. Congrats on your score! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbosborn Posted February 18, 2004 Author Share Posted February 18, 2004 Ryan, Thanks for the reply. I will check out those capacitors. Any thoughts on the power cord or speaker connections? Thank-you. john osborn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deang Posted February 18, 2004 Share Posted February 18, 2004 A cute "toy". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guy Landau Posted February 18, 2004 Share Posted February 18, 2004 For speaker posts check out part # 45-282G http://www.jaytronics.com/connectors.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazman Posted February 18, 2004 Share Posted February 18, 2004 ---------------- On 2/18/2004 10:37:02 PM DeanG wrote: A cute "toy". ---------------- So are your Quads! Klipsch out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deang Posted February 18, 2004 Share Posted February 18, 2004 LOL -- yeah, right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrot Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 John, Although I've heard quiet EICO HF-81 units, I have never heard a dead-silent one when it is on. The hum might not be noticeable once you're more than a few feet away, but it is there. What I found was a bigger problem is their tendency to have mechanical vibration, usually because of the power transformer. I've heard units that you could hear vibrating from 15 or 20 feet away. Sometimes when the transformer vibrates, it makes other parts vibrate, including the sides and the top cage. This may possibly be fixed just by tightening the transformer screws, but other times not. There are a lot of bad HF-81 transformers in this world, so if you have a quiet one without mechanical vibration, feel fortunate. I sold a good one to a guy who had 5 other HF-81s, each purchased off eBay, and each one with bad enough problems he didn't use them. He was more unlucky than usual, but there are definitely a good percentage of noisy ones out there, and it isn't typically a quick fix of changing two capacitors or changing out some tubes. There are two schools of thought as far as capacitors go. These amps are 44-45 years old, and many have been abused over the decades. If you were going to keep it for years, the safer thing to do would be to replace the capacitors. There is also the other idea, of not replacing a cap if it tests okay. That's valid too, but it doesn't mean the cap won't go bad next month. Depends on whether you believe in preventative maintenance. As far as the magic of the sound goes, no one can say how this amp sounded 44 years ago. It is unlikely that it sounded exactly like it does now. Switching parts may or may not bring about a sound you like more. But it's pointless to try to match a sound that existed in the past. Just go for what sounds best to you with your present speakers and system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOSValves Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 Paul has more experience with HF-81's then any other member of this forum. I believe he owned 5 at one time plus a pair of HF12's and a HF85 preamp. The transformer buzz can be a problem and is the result of people running these amps without having it checked out and pourly matched tubes. The cheap discs capacitors that are used for coupling caps almost always leak along with other parts that tend to become trouble and stress the power transformer. EICO used a power transformer that could just barely do the job in this amp so the least bit of out of spec operation stresses beyond its limits and it starts buzzing some worse then others. The tho 30uF electrolytes are rarely the problem I will be surprised if changing them out will solve your problem but its a good Idea for sure. These amps sound much better rebuilt unless your lucky and recieved one that has stood the test of time with proper care I personally still think they sound better when rebuilt then stock even if it is working prefectly. I've rebuilt at least 20 of these amps and they always sound better with nice parts installed. Do they sound the same......nope but I think that is a good thing. Craig Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrot Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 I owned a mere 4 HF-81s at one time, not 5. I had so many because I had them set up for multi channel SACD, and then found a couple bargain-priced units that I didn't want to pass up. I had a friend who I thought was going to set up a similar system, but he wound up getting other equipment, so I sold the extras on eBay instead of to him. Then when I moved I found 14 watts wasn't enough for the new living room, so I sold the others too. There are a few units in beautiful condition that have been photographed and displayed on this forum. But by far the great majority of specimens are in distressed shape, cosmetically and electrically. Rust, filth, brittle wires, miswired, leaky caps, etc. So you have to be more careful than normal not to get a junk one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtice Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 Jbosborn, I bought one about a year ago very much the same way you didnever having actually heard one. I had Craig do a full rebuild. It had a bit of hum at first but it was silent when I got it back. My recommendation is to go for the full rebuild because it will probably sound better and so you'll know it's right and have more confidence in it. It's a sweet amp and I'm sure you'll enjoy it. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daddy Dee Posted February 23, 2004 Share Posted February 23, 2004 ---------------- On 2/18/2004 10:29:00 PM Ryan C. Inman wrote: Dee, I'm certainly glad to hear that you're enjoying the HF-81 and 222-D, both are top picks for vintage integrated's. Now that you've had a chance to hear each of them, how would you compare them? Do you prefer one over the other, and if so, what are the reasons why? How would you rate them compared to the 299-B? Few people have heard all three of these amplifiers, and I'm just trying to get another point of view. I know how I would rank them, but I'd like an opinion on how they rank to another listener. I think this information would be of benefit to another individual in the market for an integrated, having to decide from these three models. Best Regards, Ryan ---------------- Ryan, oops, hadn't subscribed to this thread, and hadn't noticed that you'd left a note here. For all round listening, I like the 222D better than the HF81. The HF81 is really nice for jazz and piano solos, vocals, but when I put on Robin Trower, it sounded off. What I like about the HF81 is the detailed mid and high end and tight natural sounding bass, especially acoustic bass. That didn't sound so good on "Bridge of Sighs". The Scott is killer on rock. All round a good amp. On the 299B and 299C that I had, it has been many months since I've listened to them, so w/o a head to head comparison, I couldn't say just a whole lot. I did prefer the 299B to the 299C, as the 7591 tubes sound somewhat "boomy" to me. I found the 299B a tad bright, but should also add the disclaimer, that my source (Tascam rack mount CD/Cassette combo) contributed to that. Those preferences are also subjective. This month I'd been checking out Grover Huffman's interconnects in my system after reading a thread praising them. Grover is a good guy, satisfaction guaranteed. Well, after listening to them a couple of weeks, I decided that they sounded overbright. At first I thought, wow, I'm surprised at the difference. Thought, and perhaps was hearing more detail, but find that it wasn't to my taste after listening to them with alot of different music. What clued me in first, was that in live recordings, the applause was causing ear bleeding. The EQ just wasn't to my liking. I sure had been skeptical about interconnects. Now, I can say that they can make the sound DIFFERENT. Not necessarily better, but different for sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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