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Highly Modified Citation II

mjalazard

mjalazard

Well-Known Member
Greetings,
I have been looking for a higher powered tube amp for a while. I need to feed my hungry planar speakers..
I came across this amp and promptly purchased it:

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It is an EL509 based amp, built by an electrical engineer in Las Vegas over 20 years ago.
The original owner could not provide me with any further information outsied of
Leonard Electronics.
Here is the description:
Harman Kardon Citation II stereo tube amplifier. Modified for vintage EL509 output tubes and 7199 input tubes and makes 100 watts per channel with no frequency bandwidth limitation thanks to the original huge output transformers and tremendous power supply. Each output tube has its own bias pot, and the bias meter in back works perfectly. This amplifier has all original transformers, original tag boards underneath, and is in beautiful shape. Output tubes are vintage Phillips EL509 with low hours. It was built by Leonard Electronics in Las Vegas NV to compete with the famous EAR 509 monoblocks.
Read more at http://app.audiogon.com/listings/tu...fiers-85737-oro-valley-az#Hw9V4SIdcIMZuhCR.99

Anybody out there familiar with Leonard Electronics?
I'de appreciate any advice.
Mike
 
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The tag boards don't look original. They were phenolic I believe. Still, all the work appears to be done beautifully.
 
Wow. That's some killer iron to build a new amp around. Although transforming a Citation II into a high-powered Stereo 70 strikes me as a bad idea. The split-load 7199 never was a very good sounding driver, and that was always the weakest point of that amp IMO.
 
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This amp has nothing to do with the Citation II other than using the original irons; nor does it has much to do with the EAR 509 which it supposily "competes" with, since the Citation II OPT lacks the 50% CFB and the balanced feedback windings of the EAR OPT.
 
Move the binding posts to the holes above where they are now, put a three-position ON-ON-ON slide switch in the slot where the binding posts currently sit. Use the slide switch to select 4-8-16.
 
interesting. I think the amp look very well done expect for the hobby box attatached to the side which I can only assume houses the choke. Bob Carver has a 120 WPC Citation II mod as well that utilizez kt-120s I believe. He had to reasign the output impedances in order to match the tubes. He also modified the circuit to reduce the idle current so that the total power demand of the power tranformer wasn't exceeded.

Steve
 
Sam Cogley said:
Move the binding posts to the holes above where they are now, put a three-position ON-ON-ON slide switch in the slot where the binding posts currently sit. Use the slide switch to select 4-8-16.
Click to expand...
That is a good idea!
I'll be taking the amp to my service engineer for evaluation and to check specs. I hooked it up to my Apogee Mini Grand panels. I am impressed with the sound.
M
 
are those orange wires running to the speaker terminals? If so those are the 4 ohm windings of the output trannies.

I also don't see enough wires coming out of the trannies. I only see 5, there should be 7. Could be the UL taps have been cut?

Take some closeup pics so we can see more of what it going on in there :).

Steve
 
There are some very interesting things going on here.

First of all I was wrong there should be 9 wires total from each tranny. I count 6 being used.

1. The 4 ohm tap and the output ground go to the speaker terminals.
2. The 16 ohm tap appears to be used for feedback,
3. The 8 ohm tap is not used.
4. The primary windings seem to be used differently on each side and I can't figure out what they intent was. There appears to be blue/white, brown/white to plate on one side and blue/white and red to plate on the other.

In short I don't have a clue what this guy has done :)

How does it sound?

Steve
 
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targeteye said:
4. The primary windings seem to be used differently on each side and I can't figure out what they intent was. There appears to be blue/white, brown/white to plate on one side and blue/white and red to plate on the other.
Steve
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It appears that the UL taps are being used for the anodes to get a much lower Ra-a impedance for the EL509's...:scratch2:

mjalazard - What's the brand of the EL509? And what is the nominal speaker impedance that you plan to use with the amplifier?
 
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jazbo8 said:
It appears that the UL taps are being used for the anodes to get a much lower Ra-a impedance for the EL509's...:scratch2:

mjalazard - What's the brand of the EL509? And what is the nominal speaker impedance that you plan to use with the amplifier?
Click to expand...

That's not what I see.

On the left
1. Ul taps to the anodes blue/white and brown/white
2. One side of the actual Anode tap to what appears to be B+ Brown.
Red CT and Blue nowhere to be seen and presumed to be cut.

On the right.
1. One side actual anode tap and UL Tap to the anodes Blue/white and Brown.
2. One UL tap to what appears to be B+ Brown/whit.
Red CT and Blue nowhere to be seen and presumed to be cut.

Perhaps I'm just color blind.

I guess there was a time these amps were considered disposable and folks did this sort of thing. If I were a Tech (and I have been one before) i would either charge a premium to try and figure this thing out or not touch it at all and most likely the latter.

The only value I see here is in the Iron assuming all the windings are still good and there is enough pigtail left to tap onto. Otherwise this looks like a hatchet job and if it were me i'd be asking for a refund.

Sorry for being harsh.

Steve
 
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targeteye said:
That's not what I see.

Sorry for being harsh.

Steve
Click to expand...
You may be right, but I see the "red" as "brown/white"... it really doesn't matter anyway, since it's not a Citation II at all, but the irons are probably worth the money...
 
I really like the way they refinished the transformer covers, always a weak point on this amp. Interesting and so beautifully constructed inside! That side box is, well, klunky. Thanks for sharing the pictures!
 
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