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Specimen Tube Amps - Made in the USA

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They do look nice.

The Pentode Driven 2A3 SE Stereo amp is the exact schematic I built, but of course components and build techniques can make huge differences is SQ and reliability.
And his look nicer than mine.

I've never tallied up the costs (mine has evolved over the years) and of course you can get deals, buy used, etc. etc., but I've probably got more than 1/2 the cost of his $3,100 in mine so his price seems reasonable to me.
 
He worked on one of my amps and I wasn't all that impressed with the work. Nice guy, though. He works with Andrew Bird (musician), makes those horns he uses on stage. I took my amp in with an issue, it came back cleaned up a bit more but with the same issue (transformer buzz). He has been the tech on a bunch of stuff a guy I know owns, and that guy is very happy with the work (collects vintage Luxman tube stuff) so maybe my experience wasn't typical.

Those horn speakers are interesting but they don't exactly sound that great. Really good for filling a room with background music but for sitting and listening intently I found them to be lacking. Great conversation starters, though. I'd actually like a pair simply to play music while I'm doing other things, but they're too expensive for that. I give him points for thinking outside the box, though.

I listened to one of the big SET amps, but it was through those tall horn speakers and the presentation was so odd that I really couldn't get a feel for whether they were good or not.
 
SE is better?

There is a reason push-pull has dominated the audio field for the past 60 years.
Why go SE? Half as much tube amp for twice the price. Makes sense to me. Big profits for the seller/manufacturer. I had an old philco tube radio from the 50's that was SE. Cheap.

Paul
 
Really nice looking amps. Wonder how they sound with Tannoy monitors...

Probably not as good as my NOS Valves VRDs ;-)
 
pdm4606 said:
There is a reason push-pull has dominated the audio field for the past 60 years.
Why go SE? Half as much tube amp for twice the price. Makes sense to me. Big profits for the seller/manufacturer. I had an old philco tube radio from the 50's that was SE. Cheap.
Paul
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It depends on what you like. I have had SE and PP and SS, I prefer SE myself. But I totally understand why people (most people) prefer PP or SS.
What it is not is 1/2 the amp, any more than a Corvett is 1/2 a malibu because it has less trunk space.
And Home Theatres in the box and Lady Gaga dominate the market, too...:D
 
For $4500 couldn't you get a restored pair of MC 60s with really nice tubes??

That would be my route.
 
BillyB said:
For $4500 couldn't you get a restored pair of MC 60s with really nice tubes??
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There are probably quite a few "classic" PP tube amps you could put on a list for that sort of money. Thing is, lots of people really like DHT SET amps, and they usually have efficient speakers, so don't need big power.

jeff
 
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