So tell us...What are you running for valves if any? I have a modified Dynaco ST 70. Got lots of help from Triode Electronics. Their mods are great and ole Ned there is one friendly fellow. I want to advance to SET mono blocks. Any suggestions for me?

The last time I was at ATI in California going through their storage closet of old gear, I came across abbut 20 new in the box Dynaco 400.

FYI: ATI also builds Adcom and Outlaw Audio.

Pardon my ignorance but who/what is ATI? I know currently the Panor Corporation owns the Dynaco name and supplies related Dynaco product.

Yeah that 400 pumps out 200 watts per channel. Wonder why they are sitting on them? Wouldn't mind having one me thinks. You know someone over there? (hint hint) :D

Amplifier Technology Inc (ATI) is Morris Kesslers new company after selling Scientifc Audio Electronics (SAE). Before ATI he was building Dyanco with James Bongiorno who was a designer at Marantz, then Dynaco, then SAE). Morris is an excentric guy and will tell you there is no old gear left. But I know better, I finally got in after almost a year of building some rapport. I've shoot an email to a very good friend of mine in Brea about 20 minutes from ATI in Montebello.

Ahh yes, James Bongiorno I know him, just don't recall Morris Kessler. Bongiorno is one of a group of new guys hired by Ed Laurent when he moved over to manage the louldspeaker design back in the 70's You know their FM-5 tuner, PAT-5 preamp and Stereo 400 power amplifier drew rave reviews from the critics at that time. Hmmm so he is sitting on his lil pile of gold the 400 amps eh? hmmm interesting indeed. I sure would like to know if you hear back about them. I would give up the first born for one!! :D

I've been friends with James for a few years now. He is building a new Amzilla2000 amp that is truely awesome. You can read about it on my website. Anyway, I went ahead and email James about the Dynaco stuff. I will let you know what I hear.

He is a regular on the very active debates going on at the SAE Talk Forum (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SAE_Talk/)

Why that's mighty fine of you partner....Thanks! ;)

Can I join in this discussion? I'm loving my SET amp, now 4 months old. I believe most (all) of the AU gang has at least glimpsed at my thread (or on-line electronic notebook) on the General Forum. One thing (well more than one) that has got my attention is the fact that I seem MUCH less pre-occupied with fine-tuning my system or looking for things to "fix", instead I feel it is "good enough" and wish to spend most of my time listening or limit my fiddling to rolling tubes. Maybe I'm just getting lazy?

The other elements that have changed is my listening space. I'm in a larger room now (27x18x9'). The other two changes that have had a profound effect, one resulting from the move, was removing the 4" granite speaker platforms. The Sonatinas are now resting on the floor with the stock (brass) spikes. The other was subbing the Bendix 6106 rectifier for a RCA 5u4gyb. Both of those changes have resulted in shift in perspective. The sound is now more centered, whereas my presentation was more in the middle and upper register, now it seems more bass-heavy than bass-shy. I haven't installed the "cryo" silver wall duplex yet, instead want to get a handle on the new sound first then evaluate the effect of the duplex. Like when I added the RCA rectifier in the "old system / room" I'm still diggin' the change, so time will tell... MikE

I started out in this vintage disease with a little Bogen DB-10 integrated..
I am still on the hunt for another one to pair up as pseudo mono blocks. After that I moved up to a Fisher 500-c, which earlier this year blew a couple of coupling caps and then a tube, so a new quad of outputs is in the works for later this year. With the giant SS Sansui G-22000 coming, I think I will just take a break from any major audio changes for a while, so the Fisher may stay on the back burner for a while, but it is very dear to my heart and I do miss the wonderful music it makes.
Starting out with the 500-c kind of makes it hard to think about going anywhere else in tubes, it is such a nice unit. I may eventually try doing some kits or find that other DB-10 and build a nice little bedroom system off of that. I also have a Bogen mono tuner that I have yet to get completely worked over. So many projects, so little time :)

All,

I built a big set of stereo speakers about 27 years ago when I first got the audiophile bug and bi-amped a pair of 15" woofers on each side in 200 lb., 9 cu.ft. infinite baffle enclosures, 1" particle board and 2x4 screwed and glued construction under Altec 511-B horns with 802-8D compression drivers. For power to the horns I wanted the smooth quality only a good toob amp can provide so I homebrewed a stereo on one chassis out of the Dynaco Mk-II circuit using a 6AN8A to drive push-pull Mullard 6CA7's in ultralinear P-P. I used the excellent and no longer available Hammond 1726, 20 watt ultralinear transformer spec'd at 20Hz -50 KHz with negligible waveform distortion. This amp is running the 6CA7's so conservatively that I've only changed one in 27 years and that was because the cathode went open and I didn't even hear it. It runs Class AB1 and when you only need less than a watt into high efficiency horns you wouldn't notice one output tube pulled out of the circuit.

I've been building up a serious home theater in my finished rec room for the past few years and wanted speakers that would fit the room perfectly. I also wanted to enjoy the transient response and efficiency that only a horn can provide, but this time I wanted horn loading through the full audio spectrum. I just recently endeavoured to build a pair of full range (down to 50Hz) front loading exponential bi-radial horns, one for each side of the 6x8 foot screen.

I've also gone to a great deal of effort to deal with room acoustics, especially long echoes from the back wall of a 40 foot deep theater. I'll do an expose on my horn project in the DIY section at a later date. These horns must be way better than 100dB/1w-1m efficient (no way to measure SPL's yet) and this 27 year old 20w/ch toob amp has all the power I need. Even though my hearing isn't what it was I'm hearing subtle nuances in my vinyl recordings that I never heard before. This amplifier on these horns seems to be a match made in heaven.

I chose the Selenium 12CO1P 12" (through the woofer magnet type like the Altec 604) coaxial driver. I wanted 'faster bass' so I went with a 12" instead of a 15" driver. The 47Hz Fs of the 12" is also a better match to the low Fc of my horn, which drops off like a cliff at 50.0 Hz. It uses a 1" throat high frequency compression driver with a 2" titanium diaphragm and ferrofluid damped/cooled copper voice coil and a good factory engineered passive 1st order crossover. Rated response (@-10dB) is 55 Hz-18,000 Hz. averaged 94 dB 1W/1M. These recently came on sale at Parts Express and I'd been looking at them with this project in mind for a couple of years. When I learned of the sale I seized the moment. These drivers work really well in my enclosures!

Since completing the speakers just two weeks ago I have begun gathering parts for an 805 based SET amp (stereo version) and I also want to wire up a farm of 6080's and try OTL (in stereo)also, all for the comparative listening experience. The SET will obviously use an o/p xfmer but I want to DC couple the driver and preamp. Might go 6SN7 SRPP into a triode connected power pentode like a 6V6, or even 6BG6 sweep tube and then direct couple to the 805 grid supplying plate to the 6V6/6BG6 with a 60+ Hy choke.

I haven't as firmly chosen the circuit topology yet for the OTL but it likely won't be a circlotron and more likely a Futterman variation.

I'd sure like to try one of the well touted commercial SE offerings, something like a 300B variant, just to hear what all the fuss is about. :)

Toobz through horns clearly rule, ...and rule clearly!

Rob

Rob, far out!!
I've gone after it the opposite direction: fairly efficient speakers, LOTS of watts to push 'em.
Makes me really want to restart a couple of stalled diy projects speaker-building-wise.
MikE, methinks you're beginning to enjoy the system and the sounds! That's great. It is so easy to keep nit-picking and miss the fun of why we're enjoying our gear & tunes.

NP: the Onkyo TX-8500 MkII, 160 wpc, extremely strong in the bottom, pushing big JBL CF-150's, also very strong on the bottom, but clean and clear throughout the FR.

So, no tubes, but really enjoy y'alls conversation.

play it,
pete

Well I just cleared out a few tube pieces like my Fisher 200B, sherwood S-3000 and my beloved Fisher X-1000 amp. For now they will have to pry my Sherwood S-5500 Amp from my cold dead hands :uzi:

Dave

My tube stuff is a Fisher FM-200B tuner, a Fisher 400CX preamp, and an HK Citation II amp.

Very sweet oldtubes! :cool:

Here is one I just got working well. A nice console with a SE 6V6GT. It is a 1946 lear AM/SW1/SW2 and 78RPM phono.

http://www.myoldkentuckyroots.com/GElowboy1.jpg

This is a 1930 General Electric H 31 Lowboy. It uses Push pull 45's for the output. I still need to get tubes for it.
Rod

I wish I still had this one

Does ATI also build the outlaw 2200 amp?

Wow, you managed to bump one of the oldest threads in the forum!

It's that confounded search function, no respect for antiquity of words. :D