what vintage gear do you own?

Eico, Fisher, Bogen, Magnavox, Scott, Heathkit, Sherwood, etc...

what vintage gear do you own?

Postby vintage_dog » Wed Dec 31, 2003 2:05 pm

I like the Eicos. They were mostly kits when sold in the late 50's but that have superb iron, nice circuits and fantastic sound...

Other brands: Fisher, Heathkit, Scott, Magnavox, etc...
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Postby rtsyrtsy » Thu Jan 01, 2004 2:45 am

I guess we first have to define "vintage."

Should the company that produced the gear NOT be in existence anymore? That makes stuff from Madrigal vintage? :D

Should there be an age limit. I have a 20 year old pre-amp. Does that qualify?
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Postby ichabod » Thu Jan 01, 2004 8:32 am

Anything made in the early 50s and 60s using tubes are in. In addition to brands mentioned above, amps from Leak, Pilot, Ravensworth, Radford, McIntosh, Rogers Cadet series, Stromberg Carlson, albeit these companies have closed shop, their products remain popular and sought after by collectors and tube sound lovers.

Any one who designs amps based on these designs using the same popular tubes like the TS 34.1 should I think be counted in too, if only because they sound very good as well.

But vintage amps, as they are often refered to, are those from the mono hifi and stereo era. All these are prior to the introduction of ss. Anything hybrid, a marriage between tubes and solid state is a modern concoction and does not fall under vintage amps although it can be argued that it may generally sound like it, or even better it!

Vintage amps belong to an era based on tube culture. The time when most people into audio love to build audio kits by themselves. Products from Dynaco and Eico were made popular because it could be built easily by the average electronics enthusiasts that amps of today can't. While this may raise issues on quality of built based on individual skills, the design genius itself stayed with its true purpose, the "fantastic sound" it gives!

I believe audio is meant to be enjoyed rather than argued. It has long been discovered that there's correlation between our brain's frequency and the earth's basal frequency (Schuman's resonance) to tube amps, and musical intstruments. All are even ordered and are very natural to the ears, thus explaining why tubes are easier and more pleasant to listen to.
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Postby vintage_dog » Thu Jan 01, 2004 12:00 pm

ichabod wrote:
Any one who designs amps based on these designs using the same popular tubes like the TS 34.1 should I think be counted in too, if only because they sound very good as well.



well, not quite. the TS 34.1 is a single-ended penthode/triode design that is more modern than vintage. in fact i have yet to see or listen to a vintage amp using the same topology, design and tube complement ;-) the closest clone to a vintage single ended amp is the zen decware, which has created a cult internationally, not knowing that the basic design is a copy of the magnavox console amp i was talking about.

what makes a vintage amp sound that good (apart from design, parts, tubes, etc) are the transformers. not only are they massive but the materials and the techniques they used are rarely duplicated in current commercial amps. one of the reasons the st35's and some dynaco's are so well-loved and sought-after are the quality of the transformers used. (some have cloned the dynaco's using other transformers and they are not close to the orig) today, the vintage Acrosound irons are much preferred than the tango's and tamura's for PP amps with vinatge designs.
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Postby Raul » Fri Jan 16, 2004 10:08 pm

I am from Italy and here it's difficult to find vintage USA amps, and to find them at good prices, so I have to turn to ebay (no garage sales or thrift stores here).
I began to be interested in vintage hi-fi two years ago, so I'm still a beginner.
Until now I bought:

- FISHER 400 receiver (circa 1967), in very good condition with wooden cabinet, all telefunken (diamond) 12ax7's, mullards on mpx section, good original 7868 output tubes. Very nice faceplate. A friend refurbished the cabinet that now looks nearly as new. Another friend installed a FisherDoc Restopack on it. Great sounding receiver, perfect with my BC1's below.

- VOICE OF MUSIC 1448 (circa 1963-4) integrated amp in very good condition. Very nice retro look, and great sounding small 6AQ5 amp.

- VOICE OF MUSIC 1465-2 tuner (circa 1963-4) (this came in a lot with the above amp)

- SPENDOR BC1 (1981) speakers pair in near mint condition.
Great speakers, for many the best dynamic speaker ever. Midrange is unsurpassed. These beat speakers costing thousands of $$$

- HEATHKIT AA-32 (circa 1968-9) integrated amp (ECL86/6GW8 output tubes) in great cosmetic and working condition, all original mullards.
A friend from USA replaced all old caps with Wima polypropylene before re-shipping it to me. It sounded very good. Then I triode strapped it and wow, now it sounds still better!
To me it's one of the best kept secrets in vintage audio, a great sleeper amps. A bit ugly, but really good. Buy one until they are cheap (available from $80 to $120 on ebay)

- DYNACO A-25 (early '70s?) speakers (two pairs).
In very nice condition, great sounding speakers. Not as good as the Spendor BC1 but they sound really nice with vintage tube amps. Still a bargain, a must have.

- SHERWOOD S-5000 (circa 1960) integrated amp (7189/6BQ5/EL84 output tubes). In very good cosmetic and working conditions.
All Telefunken 12ax7 smoothplate that test as new. Great sounding and very nice looking amp. I replaced the selenium rectifier (it had too hot voltages on output tube grids (it was -13V! Now it runs cooler and safer at -20V)

- HEATHKIT EA-1 (aka AA-191) PAIR (circa 1950-55). Mono single ended EL84 amps. I still have to receive them, but I'm looking forward to hear them, as I read rave reviews about them.

Well, this is my collection until now, I'm very happy with all my purchases and I would not sell any of them. I'm sure I will buy some more, as this is a really addictive hobby. I was warned at the beginning, but I didn't listen...
Best
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Postby Tubedude » Fri Jan 16, 2004 11:38 pm

Wow great sounding gear collection! Nice going for a "beginner", Raul.
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Postby ichabod » Sat Jan 17, 2004 8:36 am

Nice to know guys like you with similar taste for the older stuff.

Why these amps sound soooo good is beyond me! Seems like they knew what should sound pleasing to the ears and stay dead on true to the music!

I've been looking for that Voice of Music amp as well.

Keep in touch.

James
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Postby ichabod » Sat Jan 17, 2004 6:25 pm

I've had a long association with TS 34.1. One of the first tube amps that I really enjoyed, and I heard many, mostly modern ones, and felt they lacked the magic of that "thereness" and "rightness" aura that you "hear" from this humble starter amp that bridges both ss and tubes for what they do best I believe.

Whatever might be those design differences, there ain't only one way to skin a cat. Good sound is not always a matter of being vintage. There's nothing vintage to me say about the sound of an eico HF 81. Parts and design it may be, but soundwise, the amp possesses a character that's closest to live sound that it makes my hair stand on end! While parts like trannies and what have you may have a strong role to play, it is I believe strongly having the right understanding and application of technology (tubes in this case) that is best suitable to the reproduction of music.

Take for instance Avery Fisher. Fisher was an amateur violinist. He knew what music was. And he has built some of the best sounding amps and preamps (the 400CX 2) because of his good understanding of musical instruments and its tonality.

Vintage or modern models that are designed with the ear's non-linear behavior in listening is as important a key as "parts" and "designs" in making an amp sound as natural as the musical instruments that we hear being played "live."

I still say that the TS 34.1 has got what "vintage" sound has with a little twist or flavor that many may yet opt.
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Postby Mike Stehr » Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:24 am

Eico HF-12 mono's, converted to power amps.
Magnavox 6BQ5 PP.
Magnavox SE 6BQ5.
I've got a Montgomery Wards (Wells Gardener) SE 6BQ5 receiver, but it's down, along with a RCA SE 6BQ5 amp.

Mike.
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Postby vintage_dog » Wed Jan 21, 2004 8:10 am

Mike Stehr wrote:Eico HF-12 mono's, converted to power amps.
Magnavox 6BQ5 PP.
Magnavox SE 6BQ5.
I've got a Montgomery Wards (Wells Gardener) SE 6BQ5 receiver, but it's down, along with a RCA SE 6BQ5 amp.

Mike.


hi mike,

first of all welcome to WS and congratulations! the HF12s are indeed nice. I have a stock pair and they sound good. On Magnavox, very few in the vintage world have discovered the Magnavox console amps...they are ugly but i have voted these amps as one of the best sounding EL84 PP amps of all times...there is a very exclusive few who have discovered these amps and these easily rival 300B amps. do you have the version using the 5U4? i have 3 of those :-). also on the Magna SE, the Magnavox EL84 is a real gem as you may have discovered. I have 2...I have converted one as a headphone amp and the other one as a regular amp but bypassed the controls...

again, glad for you to be here and glad to finally find someone with these amps!! these amps were produced by the thousands during the golden age of audio and have entertained thousands with their very musical sound! forget about scott, eico, dynaco, bogen, fisher, heathkit, carlson-stromberg integrated amps for awhile (i own and have listened to all those)...in the EL84 PP amp kingdom, to me, the magnavox is king! (again, just my personal preference).. but they don't get the respect of vintage collectors because they look absolutely ugly and bare :-) and no one wants to show them off :-)

hey, congratulations too for being the 700th member of Wiredstate!

Francis
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Postby Tubedude » Wed Jan 21, 2004 11:30 am

Congratulations to our 700th member, Mike!
I too own the HF-12 Eico a very sweet amp. Use the tape out like you do. What tubes are you using. Mullards? Gota love them EL-84’s!!!!
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Postby ichabod » Wed Jan 21, 2004 11:49 am

You're the best guy I think who can give us some beautiful prose about the el 84's. How about it?

Just being my usual self Dan!
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Postby Mike Stehr » Wed Jan 21, 2004 12:13 pm

700th member? Cool!

I have a local audio friend who turned me on to the old Magnavox console amps.

The first tube amps I had were the Eico's, pretty much cut my teeth on those.
These HF-12's are pretty much like HF-14 power amps now, with just a 12AX7 for a driver.
Some folks don't agree with the idea of turning these little integrated's into straight power amps, oh well. I had my reasons.
They do have nice output iron, the bass from the OPT's doesn't get too low, but due the size you can't expect gobs of inductance. The midrange and top end is rather nice, however.

I have another pair of these HF-12 OPT's for a homebrew amp someday...

The Magnavox SE amp I have was just a power amp in the console, daisy chained to a receiver which had all the tone controls with the on/off switch.
It uses a EZ-81/6CA4 for a rectifier, no choke. OPT's the size of chokes themselves.

My friend's uses a 5U4,(well a 5V4 now, I think) with a choke.(Another guess.)
His output transformers are larger, and of course get down much lower on the bass.
Bass-wise, he betters me.
But, my little OPT's have a midrange to die for. Where his only extend out to 20, 30 kHz, mine go on to 40 kHz.
These OPT's would be great for triode strapping, though it's still pentode with feedback.
Both amps have their own traits and sound great.

This little SE amp usually makes somebody scratch one's head, wondering how all that great sound comes out of that butt-ugly little beast.

He did a little tweak with the cathode bypass cap and resistor, increasing the values of each a bit, giving his amp a little boost at 30 hz. I did the same with mine.
Some may disapprove, but it helps at lower listening levels, IMO.

The lower bass end is pretty much on par with the Magnavox PP. At the lower levels. Once you crank up the PP it creams the SE on bass. Gee, it is only a 4.5 watt amp at clipping.

I like my Magnavox PP. Between the cathodyne driver stage of the Eico, and paraphase inverter stage, they have different sonic signatures.
They both sound great, but I almost kind of tend to favor the Magnavox PP over the Eico's.
Maybe it's all four output tubes strapped to one cathode bypass resistor, though it does need a good matched quad.
I do know like that it is more quiet over the Eico's. The Eico's each need a PS choke, IMO.

The Magnavox PP rivaling a 300B amp? Oh man, don't say that!
I'm building a 300B amp!
Ya know, my audio buddy asked me that. "Whaddya gonna do when you finish the 300B amp, and come to find out you like the sound of the Magnavox PP better?"
Oh well, it's the learning experience. I wanted to try a SET amp, it'll have it's own signature as well.

I like vintage because being you do it for cheap.
I can live with ugly amps.
I wish I could afford the fancy boutique amps for the looks, but as one learns the DIY route you can factor in cosmetics as well.

The Magnavox SE uses all Mullards, the PP uses EI's with 6EA7's that either RCA or Mullard, probably Magnavox labeled RCA's.
(They are not GE.)
I use a homebrew passive linestage and '83 Klipsch Cornwalls with all this junk.
And have some cabinet's for full-range speaker experiments.

This hobby is like a sickness.......

Thanks for the welcome aboard Francis!
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Postby vintage_dog » Wed Jan 21, 2004 12:14 pm

Tubedude wrote:... Use the tape out like you do.


did you mean tape in?
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Postby Mike Stehr » Wed Jan 21, 2004 12:25 pm

On the HF-12 you use can use tape out for input.
If you look at the fiddler Eico site for the HF-12 schematic, I think it indicates that.
It also bypasses the tone control section, and a 20 mic side of the can multicapitor.

When I replaced mine with JJ multicaps, I added the extra 20 microfarad.

Actually the input is right next to the input driver tube now.
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Postby Jon Agner » Wed Jan 21, 2004 3:15 pm

Vintage Equipment I own (and still use):

Harman Kardon A224 Trio - This amp serves as my introduction to the world of Vacuum Tubes (That is, after Ike Tuazon talked me into buying this amp). Rated at 24 watts, It uses a quad EL84 pentodes in PP mode.

HH Scott LK 72B Stereomaster - Rated at 36Wpp, this amp uses a PP 7591's for its power stage. Unfortunately, the power transfomers were rewinded to suite a 5u4G, instead of a 5AR4 rectifier.

Fisher X-100A - Same as the Harman Kardon, this amp also uses EL84's (7189's came along with this amp) for its power amp stage. Still in the process of finding out more about this amp.

Garrard Zero 100 turntable using Shure M/N 70 cartridge and needle.

Mission 700 speakers & Speakerlab mini monitors (looks like an LS3/5 but not sound like an LS 3/5)

Although my listening corner hosts the 2A3 tubong bastos and the Tono pre-amp, these vintage amps still continues to play beautiful music in our bedroom.
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Postby ichabod » Fri Jan 23, 2004 2:12 pm

Might I add. One of the great amps I've heard also are the Pilots 232, and 240.

What these amps got is great tonality with a good soundstage. And by any standard, that's quite hard to come by or find!
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Postby setup1 » Sun Jan 25, 2004 2:23 am

In case some you are not aware, back in the mid to late 80s The Absolute Sound published a series of articles on "Golden Oldies" authored by Walt Bender and Steven Stone. I am sure those issues hit the Philippine shores and I regard them as good reference material for vintage audio collectors. Well worth searching for.

Regards,

Joseph
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Postby ichabod » Sun Jan 25, 2004 5:59 am

The review of S Stone on the Atom by Paradigm was pretty right on th nose. I did end up using the atom for 5 years. Good speakers for the money. But it didn't have the mettle to survive the tropics. The foam surround rot, but Paradigm was kind enough to send me two replacements. They also had cheap plastic for speaker terminals with a spring loaded clip on to hold the speaker wires. That too Paradigm had to send me a replacement. Soundwise, it was good on my luxman.

Dr. Greene was the guy who run the mag I believe. He loves British speakers notably Spendors and Harbeths, and they too are classics of the vintage era you might say.
We seem to be reading the same notes, but the one you mentioned had escape me.

My warmest.

James
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Vintage amps - long

Postby setup1 » Sun Jan 25, 2004 6:20 am

Hello,

We had a snowstorm and I'm stuck with some free time so I'll jump in here and contribute on my vintage experience.

I no longer own any vintage amps but still keep a bone stock PAS 3 for posterity and listen to a Scott LT110B FM mpx tuner. However when I burned out of high end in 1986 until I went SET/DHT in the mid 90s, I've collected, modified and serviced several classic amplifiers.

My frustration with high end stuff during the ragin' 80s was due to my c-j preamp going back and forth between McLean, VA and NYC for servicing. At that time, I had an AR/Merrill mod turntable with an FT-3 arm/Grado sig. 8, cj PV2Ar, Berning EA230 driving Magnepan SMGas. a decent entry level high end system for a grad student with some TAS and Stereophile credibility. While the cj was out being serviced, I sorely needed a preamp so I found a PAS/ST35 combo for less than $100 in downtown NYC to tide me over. I found out later that with a few mods and updating here and there, they possesed greater musicality than a lot of the touted and expensive high end tube amps of the time. First to go was the SMGa and I found the right speakers for classic amps in the LS3/5A and Quad ESLs.

Here are my faves driving LS3/5As.

PP EL34 UL [ultralinear amps] amps:
1. Eico HF series with Mullard derived input/driver stage EF86 or 12AX7--DC--> 6SN7GTB long tailed, HF 60 is tops due to monoblock construction and the Acro TO-330 OPT, the HF50 runs a close second albeit with a slightly inferior Chicago Standard OPT, nice sounding nonetheless. Stereo amps, I prefer the cathode biased HF87 to the fixed bias HF89 due to the softer clipping characteristics inherent in that biasing scheme. IMHO the HF 60 is in the same league as the Marantz 8B with budget cosmetics.
2. Pilot SA 260 - another nice amp with an input/driver circuit that is very similar to a Jadis, makes me wonder whether the Jadis folks based their design on this amp.
3. Dyna ST70/MKIV - great starting point for DIY/Mod experimentation, OPT quality is not the same as the Pilot or Eico, but good sounding nonetheless. This is how I formed my opinion that the Mullard circuit sounds best to my ears driving a push-pull design. Stock, they are musical if lacking in definition. If you want the utmost performance, graft the HF87 front end on an ST70 and it will be close to the best amps [within its power rating].

All these amps sound better triode connected if power is not an issue. This is also why I've lived with the 6SN7 as a driver tube and I've adhered to a similar topology for my SE designs. It's just a very linear tube with enough current and voltage swing to drive just about any power tube.

PP UL 6L6/5881/KT66
1. Heath W4 - classic Williamson design with Chicago OPTs, 6SN7s for the input driver stage, NICE!
2. Heath W5 - another Williamson, supposedly more deluxe than the W4, but they went with 9-pin equivalent 12AU7 for the input/driver. Saving grace is the Peerlees 16309 or 16508[?] OPTs, Acro standards of quality mated to MO KT66s.
3. W2 and W3 - classic two chassis Williamson, the early W2s had Peerless OPTs and some were even fitted with 807 outputs, the later W3 had 5881 with Acro TO-300 OPTs.

In stock form I place them on the same sonic level as Dynas. W1-3 series are even better.

I have a soft spot for PP UL EL84/6BQ5 in my experience sounded great driving Quad ESL57s. My all time favorites in alphabetical order are:
1. Acro 20/20 - this is a very simple Loftin-White adaptation into PP [12AX7 paraphase inverter---DC---PPEL84], no caps in the signal path, Almost Class A constant current [no SS devices though] operation. Very tiny deluxe chassis [looks like a mini Marantz 8B] and superior, potted Acro transformers.
2. Dyna ST35 - considered to have been fitted with the widest bandwidth Dyna OPTs, very simple cascaded/cathodyne inverter 7247 input tube [1st stage is a 12AX7, the second stage is a 12AU7]. Spartan looking but this sounded good.
3. Leak 20 - British response to the American counterparts, great OPT, Mullard style input/driver AND tube rectifier.
4. Pilot SA 232 - Similar input/driver stage 12AU7/12AX7 to its bigger brother SA260. Very sweet sounding and tube rectified also.

I held on to these 4 amps for the longest period of time until I sold them to finance my SET/Altec system.

Honorable mention goes to Eicos, stereo, mono blocks and integrateds and the Fisher SA100. Although these don't have ultralinear OPTs, they are good amps nonetheless. I wonder if anyone in the forum knows of the fate of my mint HF86 with the original box? I sold prior to leaving Manila in '92.

Classic Preamps:
1. Dyna PAS - mainly due to its flexibility for upgrades and experimentation. In stock form it will please the most avid music lover. Modified, it can be a high end beater. I still remember my ugly looking, early effort modded PAS 2 [phono stage and line stage was derived from the early Marantz Audio Consolette] trouncing an SP9.
2. Pilot SP215 and 216 - very nice looking with twin VU meters up front. Nice sounding too since they used 12AU7s in the line stage. Has a great tape head input wherein you can plug in the output heads of an open reel for true all tube open reel playback.
3. Eico ST84 - this is an ugly duckling but I serviced half a dozen of these for Angela Instruments and one time pitted it against a Marantz 7 and I preferred it to the 7.
4. Harman Kardon Citation 1 - very deluxe build, although if it was a kit built unit, be prepared for complex rebuilding/sleuthing to make them work. A bit dark sounding but very flexible I loved the tape head input sound mated to my Tandberg open reel transport.

I never was too enamoured of the Marantz 7 sound, it tended to sound comparatively thin and compressed and I think this was due to the 12AX7s in the line stage with a lot of negative feedback. Marantz got it right the first time when the early Marantz 1 audio consolette monos had a 12AU7 in the linestage. The phono stage of the 1 is also superior sounding to my ears.

I'm not an engineer and as you can see my empirical knowledge that led to the development of my present system was based on years of careful study of classic circuitry. Anyway I hope you get some cool ideas from reading this.

Regards,

Joseph
Last edited by setup1 on Sun Jan 25, 2004 2:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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