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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.

128x128hilde45
hilde45's avatar
hilde45 OP
5,035 posts
 

I hooked up my Dynaco ST-35 to my speakers and did some listening. 
97 db speakers -- JBL 16inch woofer and Beyma AMT tweeter.

HEARING: 
Very strong grip on bass. Amazingly good. 
Mid range less warm, intimate than I expected. 
Highs pretty clear, though perhaps some slight roll off. 

Overall, there is a slight lack of finesse, smoothness in the mids and highs that I am looking for in a lower-powered amp.

I think I'm not hearing this amp at its potential and it may be due to the tubes it came with: 

Sovtek 6BQ5 power tubes (4)
Sylvania nos 12DW7 pre-amp tubes (2)

If anyone has suggestions for good alternate tubes for this amp, I'm all ears.

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,924 posts
 

@hilde45 I'd go with a set of JJ EL84s before Sovteks or for that matter any Russian made version.

Have the tubes been tested? If any are bad all bets are off.

If you have level controls on your speakers it might be a good idea to run pink noise through the system and using a spectrum analyzer app on your phone, adjust the controls slightly for best results. This amp has a lower output impedance than any tube amp (such as an SET) that runs no feedback so if your controls (if you have them) were optimized for an SET they won't be right for this amp.

Your amp in the photo looks fairly new. Apparently there's a resistor option on this amp; do you know which kind your amp uses? It looks like they might be the carbon film resistors. IME the metal films sound better.

If the amp has been sitting unused for a while or is brand new, it may need some break-in time.

I doubt its actually rolled off- this amp has full power bandwidth well past 50KHz.

 

hilde45's avatar
hilde45 OP
5,035 posts
 

Thanks @atmasphere. I need to check into those things and I have a friend/tech who can help.

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