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need tube amplifier advice please


Deang

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Tom -- don't ever give me sh!t again about not answering my email. You should also know that I'm not as forgiving as Craig. If you do business with anyone but me, I'll hunt down and kill you. It's part of your no-life warranty.9.gif

That's me, Mr Gearhead, and still President of the Amp of the Month Club. What choice do I have? I only have 3 CD's, and I do have to keep things interesting around here.

So Paul, still on your "period".9.gif

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Or shouldn't it read:

"Big Ol' Horns"!

No one really says "Big Old Horns" anymore these days...15.gif

I'm really interested to find out what Dean will think of the VAC once it arrives...should be an interesting review, and I for one can't wait to read it.

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On 12/15/2004 6:52:20 PM DeanG wrote:

What would you have suggested?

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Don't you just hate it when a key question is left hanging out there in the breeze? Well, I venture to say he'd have said that you can't collect the last drop of delicacy out of Mudvayne that they so richly deserve by using an amp of more than 3.5W.

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LOL -- I hope not. I'm sure tired of dealing with that kind of thing. Believe me, I went all over it before powering it up.

Not the cosmetic gem I'd hoped for. There is some hazing on the gold around the transformers, and the tops of the gold cap covers between the transformers are scratched up. These things are removable, and it looks like someone was just careless with them. Probably removed them, and put them in a box so they could happily roll around and bang into each other. It doesn't look like they were any more careful when they decided to put them back on, and managed to ding the side of the right output transformer as they slid them back on. The guy was either blind, or just didn't give a sh!t.

I've already polished out the light scratches on the black, clear coated sections of the transformers, and fixed the small ding with a drop of black fingernail polish. I'll need some Mother's before I can do anything with the hazing. The amp actually looks better without the gold cap covers. I'll probably polish out the scratches and have them sent out to be black tefloned...IF...I decide to keep it.

It's noisy. Noiser than the Apollos, which means I can hear it from 20 feet away. It's not a hum, but a buzz. There is a knob on the rear of the amp to add feedback. If I set it to the max setting, I can get it to quiet down to about where the QUADs were. At the zero feedback setting, the noise level is unacceptable, and there is waaay too much gain. Thank God for The Peach -- or this amp would already be back in the box. I really haven't had time to play with it much. I dealt with the cosmetic issues late last night while everyone was sleeping. Today has been madness around here -- so no in depth thoughts about the sound for a couple days. I have a feeling this one will benefit from some warm-up time. It also has a personality, which I think is an attribute of Triodes -- I found myself talking to the stupid thing -- coaxing it to cooperate with me.

It's a modified Williamson circuit, but why they didn't go the extra mile and choke load it is beyond me. OTOH, I don't know enough about amplifiers to render any kind of critical judgment. My initial impresssion is that the bass, while tuneful and present -- is a bit weak. The QUADs were definitely warmer -- maybe in part due to the great bottom they had. I have a feeling the solid state rectification is coming into play here too.

I'm hoping this is a case where the thing that impresses the least at first, is the thing that impresses the most at last.

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