Valve Advice

Posted by: Steve G on 30 December 2001

I've always wanted to have a play around with a valve amp so I'm considering picking one up. Budget is max 600-700 quid, used or new. I've seen a few options but have no opportunity to demo them.

Does anyone have any experience or advice to offer? I'm not bother about power output as long as it can drive my Credos.

The affordable valve company do a 40W EL34 intergrated for 600 bucks, the 12W Audion Sterling integrated is 600 new (and I've seen one used for 300) and I've seen used Unison Simply 2's for about 600-700 in the past. Anything vintage I should consider?

Cheers
Steve

Posted on: 30 December 2001 by Rockingdoc

You can't beat the Quad monoblocks with an efficient speaker. Getting old though, so check your fire insurance cover.

Posted on: 30 December 2001 by Ron Toolsie

One of the best valve amps at about any price was the Audio Research D-70 mk2. This retailed for just under 2,000 UK (I know, I bought one there circa 1984) and it offered extremely fine performance with a 42/Hicap upstream. You should be able to happen across one of those within your budget, but allow another 100 UK or so for a set of replacement tubes... the 6550 tend to start to glow brick-red after a few years and need replacing.

Ron
Dum spiro audio
Dum audio vivo

Posted on: 30 December 2001 by bam

If you are unsure where to buy replacement valves, Maplin Electronics do a surprisingly wide range that includes the EL34 and KT88.

Posted on: 31 December 2001 by richard goldsmith

Valve amps make great guitar amps. Fender, Vox and Marshall are the bees knees. This is because they are part of the musical instrument in tandem with the guitar. I flirted with valves with hi-fi, but cannot be bothered any more. A sad incident involving Audio Innovations, cooked transformers and fire alarms put a stop to that. If you are really set with the idea, you could always flirt with the Hi-Fi World kits. As for Quad II's, my view is that they make a reasonably good "euphonious" match for the original Quad ESL, but beyond that who cares? They have a soggy bass and are generally overrated and overpriced.

Posted on: 02 January 2002 by Steve G

Given my incompetence with DIY I think I'll give kits or vintage kit a miss and try for something newer.

I've seen a couple of modern integrateds for sale used - An Audionote Oto for 525 or an Arion Electra for 595. Does anyone know anything about these?

The Arion is a push/pull design and looks quite cute with all the valves on show.

The Oto is a 10W single ended, class A design with the valves fully enclosed.

Regards
Steve

Posted on: 02 January 2002 by Steve G

Seems to be a 20W per channel class-A design.

Posted on: 03 January 2002 by Steve G

Well I've gone for the Oto - it should be here next week and I'm looking forward to comparing it with my Naim amps.

Cheers
Steve

Posted on: 07 January 2002 by Steve G

quote:
Originally posted by Steve G:
Well I've gone for the Oto - it should be here next week and I'm looking forward to comparing it with my Naim amps.

Well the Oto is hear and I've been listening to it for about the last 3 hours. I'm feeding it from one of the tape outputs from the 32.5 at the moment 'cause the Oto doesn't have a phono stage and I can't be bother digging out the right cables to connect up the CD3.5.

It seems to work ok with the Credos at moderate listening levels but the sound hardens at higher volumes. The combination doesn't seem to like rock much but it's very musical with classical, jazz, female vocals and acoustic. I need to live with for a while longer though before I really get a feel for it.

It's bloody huge though, only just fitting in my rack! I'd say it's about 2.5 times wider, twice as tall and about 20% longer than my 32.5 pre.

Regards
Steve