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Two HK Citation 16s followed me home!

gonzothegreat

gonzothegreat

Super Member
Saturday I went to the Rockford hamfest to sell off some accumulated electronics and see what the other gear flippers had brought. One of the indoor sellers decided to part with his vintage reference system - KEF 104aBs Cantatas driven by a pair of mono strapped Cit 16s. The acoustics of the fairgrounds barn were far from perfect but I could tell the KEFs were in the same boat as a pair of Celestion Ditton three ways I loved. The amps were in very nice shape and had no trouble driving the KEFs. He wanted what I thought were nearly internet prices for the gear - $325 for the KEFs and $500 each for the 16s and there was no freaking way I could buy even just the KEFs. Complimented him on his system and shot the bull for a while before returning to my booth. While my wallet knew I could not afford the gear my brain tried to find a scenario where one amp would follow me home. Even maxing out my ATM card wasn't going to make it happen.

While waiting at a food stand I noticed somebody's fest ticket on the ground. They hadn't filled out the prize stubs so I wandered back into the barn to drop them in the barrel. On the way back I passed by the Citations and the seller hinted he would take less if I was interested. I explained my situation and laid out that unless I found buried treasure under my booth it wasn't going to happen. I don't like wasting a seller's time by pretending I can afford their gear.

He gave me a "tell ya what I'm gonna do" look and I couldn't believe my ears.
:jawdrop:

For not much more than the price of one amp, he offered to sell the amps, the KEFs, an Adcom passive pre and a nice Sony 4950 tuner. A relative had been hounding him to sell him the system and they agreed to sell it at a fire-sale price if it didn't sell at the fest. He also mentioned that he could take credit cards & Paypal.

Then the weird **** started to go down...

Sold a laptop and a microscope to add more to the amp fund.

My Heathkit CW ham gear sold bringing me another $100 closer.

Finally the EKG machine I had bought on a lark sold to a friend who revealed he had a heart issue that he wanted to monitor at home.

Maxed out the ATM withdrawal and put the remainder on plastic. The seller wrote out a detailed receipt to show to the relative in case he complained. Tetrised the gear into my Focus wagon carefully using towels to protect everything and drove home to Madison.

I guess he REALLY didn't want to sell the gear to his relative. :D
 
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Sometimes things just come together, you may have used 1 of those times up on this score.
 
good to hear he was open to deal,I lived for many.many yrs with a pair of HK citation 16A amps as my main system biamping a beaut pair of AR9 speakers.
those amps are party animals with large dampening factor and for SS sound very good.
They don't break a sweat driving 4 ohm loads as well.. enjoy
Hunter
 
The AudioKarma gods have not only smiled at you, they shook your hand.and patted you on the back.

Good luck with your new gear.
 
If those speakers can be biamplified, you might want to try that instead of using one strapped amp per speaker. The key is whether the built-in crossovers are set up to allow biwiring or biamplification; hopefully you can find a manual online. You might experience better sound; the amps will "see" a higher-impedance load and any high-frequency clipping artifacts will be kept in the woofer. Enjoy!
 
Too much stuff and cash talks. Mind your "pints and quarts" as the brits say.

Just take a good second look before hooking anything up... worth a look inside sometimes unless you saw the stuff work.

I hope it's a good score :D
 
The KEFs aren't biampable so that's a non-starter. The few speakers I have that are biamp friendly are in storage (EV Interface Ds and some huge late 80s vintage AR MTM style towers) so that's not going to happen until I sell the Cornwalls.

The seller was running the system at the show but only had a portable DVD player running "Top Gun". Since that was the movie a local hifi salon used back in the day to demo their Polk SRS towers I had no complaints. The gear was running perfectly at the show but I'll still check the bias/offset/caps before giving it a real workout. He didn't mention any recent servicing so the insulators for the TO3 outputs - ten per channel, twenty per amp - will definitely need attention. Its still probably the factory grease and that just won't do when the combined wattage of the two amps is in the HORSEPOWER range. :D

Just a quick question about the power ratings - in stereo mode the manuals state a power output of 125wpc in stereo mode but in mono mode he said they can push 500 watts @ 8 ohms. Did they wire up the dual-mono power supplies as one supply per rail for a total of 120vdc swing?
 
Forgot that the seller had the original manuals for EVERYTHING. When I was switching the amps back to stereo mode - two internal jumpers and you're done - I found an "amp clinic" report card from a dealer. In mono mode one of the amps topped out at 1050 watts at 8 ohms with 0.018% THD. No that is not a mistake - OVER A KILOWATT. According to the manual rated power in mono mode is roughly 500 watts.

DAMN!!!
 
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