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Grommes 61PG or Heathkit W5M to restore?

postman56

postman56

Active Member
I was interested in hearing if anyone has some history with the Grommes Hi Fidelity 61PG tube amplifier?
I have a pair of these ,6L6GB/5881 mono integrated amps and was wondering if I should have these restored or a pair of Heathkit W5M's and which would be a better listening experience and investment.
I look forward to anyone's opinions.
 

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The Grommes is an integrated amp that has the preamp built in. The W5M is a great amplifier but will require a pre amplifier to use them which adds to the expense of the system.
 
I'd be fixing the Grommes. Grommes made some really neat equipment and it is near or at the top of the heap. Heathkit stuff is entry level, and IIRC the W5M is not known for being an incredibly stable amp. You will have something truly special once they are finished.
 
I have a pair Grommes 61PG,s. Not much info to be found on them. I actually had sent mine to Grommes which is still in business around the Chicago area. All they could confirm was that they both had low gain but gave no specific reason for that. Further diagnostics were needed. They are a small compnay and their commercial orders came first so I had them sent back to me.

They still sit packaged very well from Grommes when they came back to me. Jeff did not charge me a dime for putting them on bench or sending them back to me. I thought it would have been cool that they would be serviced by Grommes but as time past I got the feeling that they weren't in the repair
business of 50 year old kits and had commercial orders to fill.

It seems there are 2 versions of this amp also. One has a damping control that matches up with the schematic that is available online. I did find another schematic that came with the kits and it doesn't have the damping circuit. The amps that you have and mine dont have that feature. You will see that they use 2 different output transformers if you get to that point.

Im not sure if you can upload or open a pdf but I attached a copy of that schematic.

I would like to get my pair up and going but they always slip to the back of the pack.

20180830_222653.jpg
 

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