Is the Eico HF 81 really that good?

The sole reason why I am a long time Agon member, musicophile and gear nerd is because, beginning early in 1967, I moved to Brookline, MA, and my new and best friend's dad had an Eico HF81 fed with a Dual table powering AR 2s. Over the next couple of years I heard on that system, in a large living room, for the first time, just-released Hendrix, Beatles, Tull, Airplane, Stones, Janis, Who, Zep, Taylor and others. That system filled and energized that room and I will never forget it.

If the Eico HF81 had anything to do with, yeah, it's a good one.

Nice job pokee great read

I have a Sam Kim complete rebuild  Heath Kit 151 that is simply outstanding. Using only the chassis and transformers Sam rebuilts the entire amp from the ground up.

great buddy of mine owns 3-5 of them at any given time..w Revel 2 something be.....very very nice sound.......stop debating and listen !!!!!

Eico tended to use a lot of ceramic disk caps in places they should not have- such as coupling caps. But their transformers were pretty good. So if you replaced the coupling caps (and of course have the power supplies rebuilt) their stuff sounds just fine.

I rebuilt one of their preamps and ran it for years, although I ran it with an external supply.