Hi All,
I have been out of the loop for several years about tube amp kits. I searched tube amp kit and I keep finding sites about a K-502 integrated tube amp kit. They have been shown in projects that all look different. One site shows one in black that has a Cambridge audio tag on it, but they must be out of business. I cannot find a price or availability. It must have come and gone int the last eight years.
I was hoping to find some kit that is small that I could build and send to my Dad so he could start listening to music again. I need some good sounding speaker kits too that don't take up a lot of space. In 1958 before I was born, He built a Heathkit Mono HI FI System. It no longer works and I have it now. He's the one that got me interested in tube stuff to begin with. I grew up listening to organ music and it rubbed off on me. I have some old RTR's and turned them into CD's with a Sony 500 something or other CD recorder. They sound pretty good too! Any suggestions. PLEASE, NOT THAT SILLY LITTLE BATTERY THING LOL Thanks in advance.

Greg

K-502 is out of production (due, I think, to the dwindling supply of the tubes it used).
www.s5electronics.com is the supplier; they have new kits based on different tubes. Reviews on the new kits are sort of mixed. My guess is that they're decent, though. (EDIT: a very slightly different version of the stereo amp was also sold by www.tubesandmore.com This is the version I have, using 11BM8 tubes instead of the 11MS8 tubes used in the "plain vanilla" S5 kit).

The K-502 is a remarkably quiet and good-sounding amplifier. Here's the one we have, FWIW:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v223/mhardy6647/K-123.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v223/mhardy6647/K-121.jpg

The Tubes and more is a K501 monoblock. The 16LS is stereo and sells for $225.00. Is there anyway to change the frequency response on a amp like this?, just curious as to what defines this performance criteria of audio equipment. I'm hoping you are a guru who can help me out. I appreciate your response and the pics.

Thanks,
Greg

How about refurbishing the Heathkit Mono rig?:scratch2:

I do plan to do that. Somewhere I have the manuals for it. I'm still gathering all this stuff up to put in my new man cave. I think it is a 5M amp and a WP2 preamp. I wanted to build something that might be easy to mail. He is in Indiana. It would sure be hard to upgrade and ship the SS1B cabinet back, it has a 15inch woofer in it and a super tweeter. The other speaker is a SS something, there is no lable on it. It is a much smaller cabinet, but they stack together and were offered as a system.
What do you think of the 16LS amp? Out in my garage is some kind of subwoofer, I don't know much about these. It is in the box, still unopened, I don't even know the brand. Someone gave it to me. Is there a way to have a small integrated tube amp, some small speakers and a subwoofer to work together. I just didn't want it to take up a lot of space in his living room. Thanks.

Greg

This would make an interesting project. Could one of these amps be used as a headphone amp? If so, how would the builder modify this amp for headphone use?

I need some good sounding speaker kits too that don't take up a lot of space. As far as a small bookshelf sized DIY speaker kit, I few years back I constructed an ADIRE HE10.1 coaxial kit. They were AMAZING! (and 96db efficient- perfect for tubes)
I got the kit directly from Adire in Seattle for a whopping $279 for the pair. (the 17x13x12" cabinets were not included but EVERYTHING ELSE was, including templates to construct the cabs from 1" MDF)

I eventually traded them for some Klipsch RF-3s and regretted it ever since. The RF-3 actually perform quite adequately with tubes as well at 98db- but there really was something about those Adires!

Anyways, I see Adire is no longer in business, but if you can find any of the kits around somewhere (a number of DIY tube related outfits were selling the kits) it certainly would be a worthy addition. If you (or anyone else) come acrosss any HE10 or HE12 kits, please contact me as I want another set myself ;)

WopOnTour

The Tubes and more is a K501 monoblock.
Well... AES (www.tubesandmore.com ) did sell the monoblock... but they sold the stereo amp, too. The one in my photo is from AES, with the S-5 enclosure.

The 16LS is stereo and sells for $225.00. Is there anyway to change the frequency response on a amp like this?, just curious as to what defines this performance criteria of audio equipment. I'm hoping you are a guru who can help me out. I appreciate your response and the pics.

Thanks,
Greg

What do you mean? Like tone controls, or like extend/flatten the bandwidth?
For the former... you can find tone control circuits in an RCA receiving tube manual. S-5 sells a preamp module kit now, too.
For the latter... changing coupling cap values will change the LF cutoff, for example. The single best mod to broaden FR would probably be better output transformers. Adding some negative feedback could be used to broaden FR and decrease output impedance and THD, too. Eventually, though, you've designed a new amplifier.

VoltSecond's page of K-12M (another morph of this amp) mods is probably worth a look for tweak ideas, too.
http://diyaudioprojects.com/Tubes/K-12M_bh/