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Your journey with lower-watt tube amps -- Can a kit be good enough?

Looking for stories about your low-watt amp journeys.

Here's the situation: I have new speakers, 97 db. Trying them with lower watt tube amps (45/211, 300b, etc) seems generally wise. I am attempting to borrow some from audiophiles in the area. 

The horizon beyond trying these things involves actually buying some. I'm looking at a budget limit of about $5k.

Curious as to folks' experience with lower-watt amp kits vs. those of good makers (e.g. Dennis Had, etc.).

If you have any thoughts about the following, I'd be interested:

Did you start out with a kit and then get dissatisfied? Why?

Did you compare kits vs. pre-made and find big differences?

Did you find you could get the equivalent level of quality in a kit for much less than the same pre-made version? How about kit vs. used?

Also: did you find there was a difference between "point to point wiring" vs. "PCB" in these various permutations?

I realize that there are good kits and bad ones, good pre-made amps and bad ones. I'm hoping you'll be comparing units which seem at comparable levels of quality and price-points.

Thanks.

hilde45
alexberger
958 posts
 

I built and now use my DIY amplifier not to save money but because I wanted to make an amplifier better than the market offers. 

I use output and interstage Hashimoto transformers plus James Audio and Hashimoto power transformers and Hashimoto chokes,

and many other expensive parts. Only the parts for my amplifier cost me $7000. 

My speakers are Alteс 604E. According to the passport, their sensitivity is 102 dB per 1 watt/1 m. In fact, their real sensitivity is 97-98 dB 1w/1m. 

The vast majority of manufacturers overstate the sensitivity of speakers. These speakers do not have very deep bass.It is around 40Hz.

So it makes the life of the amplifier easie.

My listening room is L-shaped, with a 300 square foot main area, a smaller 120 square foot section, and 8-foot ceilings.

I don't have any issue with playing super load +105dB and I don't have any issue with speed and bass in different styles of music.

But it took me many years to improve the amplifier and to make it sound good with different kinds of music that people think don't suit SET amplifiers.

dekay's avatar
dekay
6,216 posts
 

Hilde:

Like the "vacation" take.

I don't care about true to the source/low lows/high highs - I just want to be entertained and fooled a bit - take a brief vacation while listening.

 

DeKay

mclinnguy's avatar
mclinnguy
1,093 posts
 

@alexberger

I use output and interstage Hashimoto transformers plus James Audio and Hashimoto power transformers and Hashimoto chokes,

How do those sound compared to Tamura F-5000 or 7000 series?

alexberger
958 posts
 

Hi @mclinnguy ,

I never had Tamura output transformers. But I had James Audio.

Hashimoto gives more low level details then James Audio. It terms of tonal balance they sound similar.

But other tweaks that I did (cathodes, power supply capacitors, adding inter-stage transformer, changing driver tubes ) gave more difference than a simple change of output transformer.  

mclinnguy's avatar
mclinnguy
1,093 posts
 

@dekay 

I don't care about true to the source/low lows/high highs

You must have Bose? 

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