harman kardon citation 16 amp?????

I hope you bought the amp. I use a Citation 16A, I find it the most listenable transistor amp ever made. Wonderful mids, superb upper octaves and the bass goes way down stairs. Very engaging, with no listening fatigue. This amp replaced my McIntosh 2300, which is no slouch in any department. I have found the Citation 16 to be a wonderful amp very stable even driving 2 ohm loads. They can be easily strapped in mono to deliver well over 500 watts into 8 ohms. My 1977 example was sent in a few years ago for a check up, and came back with only one neon bulb replaced. All else is original. My unit delivered 205 watts into 8 ohms and nearly 300 into 4. Very rugged, well built and beautifully voiced amplifier.

Very good amp. BTW the Citation 12 was the first amp to use a differential input stage. I believe both the 12 and the 16 were designed by Matty Otala. A very gifted designer in the day. I don't know if he is still designing. The Citation 12 was the first amp to deliver wide bandwidth and he showed that an amp that delivered good square wave response had sonic advantages. High Fidelity and Stereo Review Magazines started to publish square wave responses of the amps under test. He also did pioneering research on transient inter-modulation distortion. All of his pioneering designs are still in use today in most amplifier circuits.

Sorry for the misspelling. His name is Matti Otala.

I just purchased a Citation 16 amp in excellent working order, the second owner said he has not had it serviced at all for all the years he had it, so it must be very reliable. I plan on servicing it though, checking the specs and probably replacing some common parts due to the age. Any amp as old as this one, from 76 or 77, will need checked over at least, by a good tech. This was a good design, which many still value today. However, for daily duty, i use newer amps in my system, because i dont want to destroy the value of a vintage amp and chance that something happens to it from my carelessness.

Make sure they clean and repack the output devices. Heat sink paste tends to dry out and crumble and no longer acts as a good thermal conductor.