Electron Kinetics Eagle 7A

7.62

Infinity nutcase.
I have the opportunity to buy back an Iverson Electron Kinetics Eagle 7A Amplifier I traded a few yeas ago.

The reason I let it go is because when I got it home, and i must say i was pretty excited to lug the beast thru the door. I hooked it up to my Kappa 8's and within 20 minutes at pretty loud volume playing some rock music the Amp went dead quite. If memory serves me right the left side was getting extremely hot.

I was blown away that the Kappa's were putting the screws to it, even after a few more test's at higher levels of volume it repeatedly would shut down, at lower levels it did fine but would still,ht really hot.

In the scheme of things it went down the rabbit hole of many amps that the Kappa 8's destroyed.

So here it is again, my buddy wants to sell it back to me for $800. If I buy it back it would sit until I could send it off to the guys that rebuild them and that's going to cost in my estimate close to $2000 by the time it's all said and done. Honestly for what I remember it sounded OK considering it's condition.

So given the low numbers that were made, and the whole story behind John Iverson is it worth going after and doing the full restore ?
 
IMO, no. Especially if you're going to use it with the same speakers that broke it before.

There are a lot of amps out there for $2000...
 
I had serial #103 many years ago. It was a fine amp, I used it with NHT 3.3’s and it rocked hard with them. I sold it after a year because I sell everything.
Idk whether I’d recommend spending $2800 for one (including the repair money) though.
 
Thanks you guys, I'm kinda fighting myself over it. on one hand there are other places i'd like to spend my money, the other is its certainly a few bucks to have it brought up to spec and have as a show piece, it's certainly at least i think one heck of a good looking amp.

I've got two pairs of speakers, Ren 90's and Kappa 8.1's, which i think it would have no problem driving.

Nothings been done to it at all, its been sitting for the last 4 years. I think this is #47. Knowing what I know id be much more apt to go for it at about 1/2 the price. Here a pic of the amp.

5A5D72C8-B2CB-4C12-9082-D0B383B2B56D.jpeg
 
I have the opportunity to buy back an Iverson Electron Kinetics Eagle 7A Amplifier I traded a few yeas ago.

I hooked it up to my Kappa 8's and within 20 minutes at pretty loud volume playing some rock music the Amp went dead quite. If memory serves me right the left side was getting extremely hot.

I was blown away that the Kappa's were putting the screws to it, even after a few more test's at higher levels of volume it repeatedly would shut down, at lower levels it did fine but would still,ht really hot.

In the scheme of things it went down the rabbit hole of many amps that the Kappa 8's destroyed.

There was something wrong with the amp if it couldn't drive the Kappa's.

It will sell for a decent amount if the current owner advertises it and is willing to ship.
 
It was sold I believe to our local vintage shop, I saw it in the glass case with another sold sticker on it, it's moving along. We (Bob and I ) owner of Audio Expert had a long discussion about the amp. I told him about it not keeping up with the Kappas etc. Which he replied in part of the discussion that was a good thing because the thermal protection is working protecting the Amp.

Anyway I'm about to take delivery of an factory gone thru Krell KSA-80B :thumbsup:
 
Anyway I'm about to take delivery of an factory gone thru Krell KSA-80B :thumbsup:

Awesome, hope you enjoy it!

We (Bob and I ) owner of Audio Expert had a long discussion about the amp. I told him about it not keeping up with the Kappas etc. Which he replied in part of the discussion that was a good thing because the thermal protection is working protecting the Amp.

Not to beat a dead horse, but just because the amp shut down doesn't mean that it could not "keep up with the Kappa's".
From the Eagle Audio website: "The Eagle 7 has earned the dubious honor of being the most broken Eagle amplifier that can still pass a signal."

I have owned many Eagle amps over the years and could drive even multiple speakers (4 pairs - rated 6 ohm imp.) at the same time with no problems.

http://www.hifi-classic.net/review/infinity-kappa-8-126.html

"The minimum impedance was 1.3 ohms, at 40 Hz, one of the lowest we have measured, and it varied between that value and 4 ohms over the range from 20 to 250 Hz. The maximum, 9.5 ohms, was reached at 1,000 Hz, and the impedance was a nearly constant 2.4 to 2.8 ohms from 1,800 to 20,000 Hz." :yikes:

What was Infinity thinking when they released these speakers and rated them "nominal impedance of 4 to 8 ohms" ? :crazy:
 
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It was sold I believe to our local vintage shop, I saw it in the glass case with another sold sticker on it, it's moving along. We (Bob and I ) owner of Audio Expert had a long discussion about the amp. I told him about it not keeping up with the Kappas etc. Which he replied in part of the discussion that was a good thing because the thermal protection is working protecting the Amp.

Anyway I'm about to take delivery of an factory gone thru Krell KSA-80B :thumbsup:


I have to say - you just half-ruined my day (with all-due respect). I purchased the amp from Bobby. I'm in the process of rebuild with some of the electronics - and I'm waiting on replacement RCA terminals . - This is the 2nd Eagle I've owned, however nobody explained these known issues to me.
 
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Now, on a brighter side (potentially.....) both channels on the input side were intermittently grouding out due to bad work on the board. - It appears that someone at one time had to replace the wires traveling to the RCA inputs and did a horrible job (my apologies if that's yourself.)

We'll see how things go. I'm still waiting on RCAs from Florida - but if I'm resoldering on the board anyhow - I might as well use a cable with male RCAs on the end and barrel it through to the preamp.
 
Oh.....smack, well welcome to AK man. I never opened the amp so anything done was not from me...LOL. Far to intimidating for me to even think about trying.

There was some discrepancy on wether it was the same eagle but I'm pretty sure it's the one. I'll look tomorrow as I have everything written down somewhere.

Glad to see it's found a good home and your checking it over, it is a beast and heavy as hell. It was my first step into an big audiophile type amp, still remember how disappointed I was when it shut down that day I brought it home and within 30 minutes and it was dead silent. If you search a bit the fella that worked with Iverson is still repairing and updating these, the name escapes me right now.

Keep us updated, I'd like to know how it does when your done...awesome man.

And opnly, I read that and everything else I could get my hands on so you can imagine my disappointment.
 
Russell Sherwood
http://eagle-audio.com/

A local friend has 3? Eagle 2's, a 2c, a pair of 400 mono amps, and a couple of 7's.
All rebuilt except the 7's (a work in progress).
I used to own several 2's , a 2c, and the 400 mono amps.
 
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I think I know D.C...for years now. Def a good guy.
 
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I own a refurbished 2, it's been out of rotation on the experimental system for a few years for some other amps.
 
Oh.....smack, well welcome to AK man. I never opened the amp so anything done was not from me...LOL. Far to intimidating for me to even think about trying.

There was some discrepancy on wether it was the same eagle but I'm pretty sure it's the one. I'll look tomorrow as I have everything written down somewhere.

Glad to see it's found a good home and your checking it over, it is a beast and heavy as hell. It was my first step into an big audiophile type amp, still remember how disappointed I was when it shut down that day I brought it home and within 30 minutes and it was dead silent. If you search a bit the fella that worked with Iverson is still repairing and updating these, the name escapes me right now.

Keep us updated, I'd like to know how it does when your done...awesome man.

And opnly, I read that and everything else I could get my hands on so you can imagine my disappointment.


So here's an update.
I striped the amp completely down; disassembled it down to removing the capacitors and cleaning her up - top to bottom.

When I first read your post with the challenges with the amp, I must say... I felt sick to my stomach. Now I can't but thank you for the heads up. I looked at the boards very closely and noticed that the RCA cabling felt "off" to me....I've been in the industry for 20+ years....Pulled out my meter to test the cabling and sure enough - dead short. Checked the other board's terminal - same thing; dead short.

It turns out that whoever had it before you did an absolute TERRIBLE job soldering rca terminal females to the circuit board. - To begin, they used some kind of antique RG-59 coaxial cable and I mean antique. There was 1/4 - 1/2" of conductor exposed for both the positive and ground - same thing on the other board not to mention - about the lowest quality of terminal connectors that you can buy.
I de-soldered the cabling and the board, cleaned it all up and replaced everything with new connectors and new cabling - Belden 9451 - shielded audio cable (Although I did not go crazy on proper integration of the shielding. I figure - some shielding in the cable is better than none at all.

The point here is that I've put her through her paces. She blew me out of the water. I had her pulling 8 amps out of the wall - running tracks like Seal - Violet (first disc - track 9) - Massive Attack, Madonna Ray of Light - Little Star, Jamiroquai Traveling without Moving - Track 13 - "Do you know where you're coming from." - Division Bell (Floyd) - and about 100 other tracks. I rode her like a stallion - and she didn't even hesitate to run perfectly - not one hiss - no noise - and I worked her to the bone.

I am beyond happy - this one smokes my original eagle 7 (stolen in a move to vegas.) It Crushes it.
Thank You!!!!

I will post pictures of the entire tear-down and cleaning - including some of the shoddy work I redid.

Hail Hail!!!

-D.C.

Mirage MMS-2a 24/96 digital rig
Aune S16 32bit /384 DAC
ADA Cinema Rhapsody IV mkII (Set up for direct 2-Channel only)
McIntosh MQ-108 Room Correction Device
Electron Kinetics Eagle 7A
McIntosh XRT-24 Loudspeakers
 
Ok......I'm blown away !

First because I felt bad.......that I had even said anything. This is without a doubt the same eagle.

I know who I bought it from but I can't say if he messed with it or not, I think I know but we'll just stop there, doesn't matter.

Just fricking awesome that your following up, I was afraid we'd never hear from you again. This is just awesome to hear from you and you have the knowledge to sort thru it :beerchug:. I'm assuming that your local and I would like to request a possible meet to have a look and listen, in turn I will do the same when I get the new Krell and associated gear going for the same treat. Really I'm really pleased and happy this is working out !!!

This really makes my day, Thank You.
 
Mebbe I should put the Eagle 2 back on deck soon, I'm enjoying the Marantz 8 at the moment.
 
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