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Pilot SA-260 Stereophonic Amplifier

Redboy

Redboy

a few good watts
This one has been in the works for a while, and getting it to the point where it's playing music in my house has involved some convoluted (but fun!) buying, bartering and bargaining with a few other good AK members and my local tube tech.


Pictures now, more of the story in a bit...


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I wondered what happened to that amp. Looks good Nate.

Hows she sound?

You're starting to amass as many cool amps as RC.
 
There is sumpin about those gold chassis Pilots.

Makes me want to start on the resurrect of my gold 232 but I'm patiently waiting on some parts, well sort of patient, lol.

Bet it sounds nice!

Lar
 
ejfud said:
I wondered what happened to that amp. Looks good Nate.

Hows she sound?

You're starting to amass as many cool amps as RC.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the whole story has taken a while to unfold, but I think it's been a good one for all parties involved.

Initial impressions are that it sounds very nice, but that's with about twenty minutes of distracted listening. I only got it back from the tube tech this morning, so more time with it is in order.

RC's in a different league altogether...
 
The Pilot saga, pt.1

This story starts waaay back when I traded my restored Pilot 245A integrated to ekmanning5 for a Pilot SA-232 and SP-210 that he had pulled from a console. The swap involved a Pony Express run to the Chicago area and local AK good guy goat67 was the courier. The deal went down beautifully, and a couple of good friendships were made.

Unfortunately, the 232 amp was completely crispy critters, having had a fire under decks at some point in it's lifetime... :sigh:

I filed the 210 pre away into the project queue.
 
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pt.2

Flash forward a year or so, and I found myself at one of doucanoe's great shindigs where all the local audio junkies play audio roulette for a day. I was chatting with a new AK acquaintance 1koolcat, and he mentioned that someone he knew had a Pilot amp sitting idle, and would I be interested in it if he could pick it up?

Oh yeah! :yes:

Peter worked out some sort of trade deal with his people for the amp, and then he and I began conversation about what he'd like for it in return. We struck a mutually beneficial deal, part of which involved me recapping his Klipsch Forte's for him. Shortly, he sent me some rather tantalizing pictures...

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pt.3 - more wheelin' and dealin'

totem said:
I love a good story.
Click to expand...

There's more! :yes:

Not much happened for a little while. I figured I would get around to the amp sometime, but ultimately decided to contact my local tube tech about working on it. He's a great guy who does excellent work. We worked out a work for trade arrangement that involved a mono tube amp and a small mountain of tubes for him, and an operational amp for me.

Testing revealed that the output tubes were shot. One thing led to another and after a few dozen PMs and twice as many Ween references ( :D ), Rex Everything and I had worked out another great deal that landed me a nice set of tubes and got him a Pilot SP-210 pre and a custom Redboy-built power supply for it.

The whole process was loads of fun, and once again AK proves its worth as a great resource and a good place to form quality relationships.

Cool, huh? :thmbsp:
 
Personally, I've never really liked the sound of Pilot amps.
Probably their choice of tube complement.

To my ears, EICO, Heathkit, Scott, Dynaco, even Merrill have a more realistic sound. I have a restored EICO Hf81 with all 1950s valves and it sounds completely 3D.
 
mikey5967 said:
Personally, I've never really liked the sound of Pilot amps.
Probably their choice of tube complement.

To my ears, EICO, Heathkit, Scott, Dynaco, even Merrill have a more realistic sound. I have a restored EICO Hf81 with all 1950s valves and it sounds completely 3D.
Click to expand...
To each his own, I guess. There are proponents of each. I too had a fully restored HF-81 for a while, and went comfortably between that and the Pilot 245A I had at the time. This thing's a different animal, though - different tubes, different circuit. The verdict's still out.
 
Nice work! What brand output tubes are you using?

I've just started working on my 260 after a 2-year layoff.
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