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Talk me out of selling my Dynaco ST-70

Well ... here's a vote from someone who is watching "Love, Actually", listening through a 1968 Dynaco ST-70 chassis with a Curcio premium front end board (populated with 6FQ7's) into Sovtek 6B4G's (a whopping 8 watts per channel) and a 5R4 "potato masher" rectifier ...

Whatever anyone else says, the ST-70 is the least expensive platform for testing, changing, trying anything in the vacuum tube amplifier world. There would not have been so many sold if they weren't at least decent. And they are certainly more than decent.

Just my opinion.
 
I say sell it. But I am bias. I was never enamored by the sound of the many 70s which I have heard. The first time I heard a Mc240, Grommes P24, Radio Craftsmen 500a, I was immediatedly impressed.
 
Wowsers

reggaenaut said:
I saw sell it. But I am bias. I was never enamored by the sound of the many 70s which I have heard. The first time I heard a Mc240, Grommes P24, Radio Craftsmen 500a, I was immediatedly impressed.
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Hey!

I bet those do sound impressive. :banana::banana:

I should sell all my amps and get one Mc240 . . .

dang, I don't think I would have enough

Dan
 
Don't sell, rebuild it. Before I actually built a kit I had a pair of these. They had slight mods. I took them to a place in Lafayette, Indiana called the Electronic shop on Earl AVE. A guy named Jeff rebuilt them. I have a PAS 3X and those two amps with a pair of Grafyx SP 10A speakers. I could turn it all the way up and there was very little music that would even make the speakers clip. It was incredible! A storm destroyed the stuff. My insurance let me buy kits. I bought a Van Alstine preamp and a pair of st70 Sound valves from Sound Values. One amp started to act up and I sold it, the other one works OK. Van Alstine told me they were an unstable Amp. He was right, I should have listened!! I found out from kit shopping that Van Alstine was a former partner/employee at the time of Sound Values. There was something to do with amp designs and Van Alstine left. Anyway, trying to get the best building experience for my insurance money, I found myself in a big pissing contest. LOL The Van Alstine is still great and was a blast to build!
 
SpruceMoose said:
ditch it. btw, virginia is closer than Puerto Rico. i'll even spring for the shipping... :)
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Same USPS system and rates, so basically is the same. Besides the amp might freeze on its way to Virginia. 84 Deg. F right now; wonder what's the temp. in VA???
 
I was never a partner or associate with Sound Values. At one time I did buy lots of NOS Dyna sheet metal from them (before we designed our own chassis). I did allow them to use my redesigned ST-70 power transformer design (at no charge) after 5AR4 rectifier tubes dried up. I redesigned the power transformer for safe operation with a solid state diode bridge to keep St-70 amps in service then. I had no idea they planned to simply put the whole AVA designed revised Super Seventy amp into production themselves, in association with Panor and cut me out completely. Of course then Panor cut Sound Values out too, serves them right. The Panor version of the amp was unstable as reported in an Audio magazine review. They left out an important feedback loop.

Enough of bad rumors without checking the facts first. This is old water over the damn in any event.

Regards,

Frank Van Alstine
 
You shouldnt sell it unless you are strapped for cash.
Just do a little research and you'll find that in its day, It was tested as just a smidge below the famed 8B in performance and then after a couple cheap mods it could hold its own.

You can completely and properly rebuild it yourself for about $175 in other peoples kits or do it yourself for about $40 less.

Better Bass response costs $32.50
Deleting the selenium rectifier costs about $5

Todays better quality rebuild parts can bring it up to todays standards easily.

Also, in the future you will think back and kick yourself.

As it turns out, Im rebuilding one now
 
I think if I had an original , and since a lot of PP amps sound kind of bland to me, I would sell it and invest in an RH807 build with 807B outputs in SE. This gets you 10 watts of SE joy. You can build one with NOS tubes for about $300 if you use new X-frmrs from Edcore. But thats just me :D
 
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