Sherwood 5000II or Eico ST40?

[tube-a-lou]

Hi all,
I might have a chance of getting either one of these which would
you get, and out of the two which one has a better phono section. :scratch2:
the Sherwood has 7868 tubes and the Eico 7591's

Tube

 

[Brian]

The Sherwood was a no holds barred amp designed by engineers who did not invite the accountants into the room. The EICO was built to a price point to compete against Heath and others. Hence, more compromises in component quality, chassis, etc. Also, if kit built, a chance the unit needs an entire relow of solder and I never liked the wire EICO used as well as the caps and controls. When commissioned to build the kits for a customer who bought one and then chickened out, I swapped all the caps for CDEs that at the time were some of the best at a reasonable price and used teflon coated silver stranded wire.

Admittedly, if I were much younger and had my bench back, I'd also do a rewire of the Sherwood to use a teflon insulated silver stranded wire as I found it seemed to my ears improve the sound.

Both are nice amps but my vote would be the Sherwood.

 

[jaymanaa]

Sherwoods may very well be the best tube integrateds from the era. They do have good phono stages, but I see you ask about phono a lot, which tells me you like your vinyl. I'll just say that any of these old units can have their phono stage made noticeably better just by replacing the components (passive or feedback) with modern units of 1% tolerances and hand matching. Then you can go a step further by correcting any inaccuracies in said stage (that takes some re-search). IMHO the Sherwood is easily the winner in this race. Dynamics, attack, bass woofer control, etc.......

 

[audiodon]

Eico sounds sweet but is a science project as far as design and layout goes.
The Sherwood wins the thumbs up from my perspective. The only minus on the sherwood is that the input terminals are closely spaced.

 

[mhardy6647]

All things being equal, the Sherwood... but are all things ever truly equal?
The EICO has good transformers and is easily tweaked and modified (plenty of room below decks). On any given day, I reckon one could pick up an ST-40 cheaper than an S-5000 family member.

(not the prettiest piece of hardware but the price was right...)

 

[tube-a-lou]

Eico sounds sweet but is a science project as far as design and layout goes.
The Sherwood wins the thumbs up from my perspective. The only minus on the sherwood is that the input terminals are closely spaced.

That what I worry about my interconnects not fitting the amps! they
look awful close together.:scratch2:

Tube

 

[BuzzK]

I'd vote for the Sherwood, for a number of reasons, including a better feature set.

But if you have big interconnects, the Sherwood is a problem.

 

[ronaldw441]

While I would also go with the Sherwood the Eico does have one advantage. Lots of room to work.

 

[archie2]

I have the Sherwood S5500II and the Eico ST40. It's the Sherwood no question over the Eico. My Sherwood has been waiting for a rebuild for a long time. Getting the matching cans was a big PITA. I had to have them custom made and they weren't cheap. It's also a complicated piece of equipment.

 

[radioactive]

Nothing wrong with either amp imho and I've had them both.my eico has had the loudness mod done and a recap.I sold the Sherwood awhile back and have my eico st40 ispacked up and sold awaiting payment.I'll probally regret selling it down the road and then again mabe not as it was mostly a shelf queen

 

[KiM3Ce]

That what I worry about my interconnects not fitting the amps! they
look awful close together.:scratch2:

Tube

@tube-a-lou, @BuzzK, I stumbled onto this vintage thread. Using a number of vintage units with modern interconnects, I can recommend a solution:

You can usually fit two of these onto vintage RCA jacks, one pointing to the left and the other to the right. That will give you space for newer cables. I'm doing that now on my Fisher tuner.

The pictured one is from Amazon. Radio Shack used to offer some that were even slimmer but they are kaput.

 

[playittwice]

@KiM3Ce ,which ones did you go with? The cheaper ones?

Thanks

 

[KiM3Ce]

Sorry, I don't have it in my records. I got ones with gold plating. I wish I could be more helpful. I don't think they have a part number on them. As long as the connections are good, I don't think it matters much. I have not done any swaps or testing.