Topic: Old Amps and Recievers?

[Sanjay]

Alright so now that I am officially moving out on my own pretty much i've been doing alot of garage sale hunting to get things here and there.  I see tons of old recievers, speakers and such and I would like to restore an old playback system. I know very little about playback and use my Sony all in one unit and while it is decent for what it is I have heard older stuff that has been restored and newer stuff and it doesnt compare.

Now for the question, can anyone give me the names of some brands or better yet models of old units that are worth picking up for restoration. i'd love to get some with tubes and such as well.  I'll just write down the names and pick up everything that is on the list of what you guys post and hopefully make something good out of it.

thanks for any help!

[cheshirecat]

Dynaco made very good Tube gear.  If you can pick up a Stereo 70, they are easy relatively straight forward to restore, I have personally broken down and rebuilt 5 of them. The PAS-2 and PAS-3 are pretty good light/airy sounding pre-amps that pair nicely with the Dynaco gear.  Other good stuff to look for (of course) are Marantz (the 8B is a killer EL-34 based amp), McIntosh aslo made some old tube gear that is built like a tank, Eico made some kit items that are very hit or miss sound wise, their Amp and preamp separates are nice, but i'm not a huge fan of thier integrateds.  HH Scott also made a ton of gear which gets favorable reviews.  You can dig through the vintage group at Audio Asylum for tons of info.

I currently run a fully restored Dynaco Stereo 70 in front of a restored Eico HF-85 pre (though i do occasionally miss my PAS-2 pre, it really has a great sound) with a pair of Large Advent speakers with rebuilt crossovers and love the setup.  In general the stuff is pretty easy to work on if you are handy with a soldering iron.  Also, don't toss the old tubes assuming they are no good, some last damn near forever and are just not made the same anymore.

[Sanjay]

wow thanks alot. +T this will help tons!

I'm not a huge fan of integrateds for much of anything (mostly my taping gear), I like to be able to swap out stuff as I please, so this is a huge help.  I remember seeing some of these brands last weekend but I really didn't know the facts behind any of it. 

[Liquid Meat]

I can second the Eico and Dynaudio equipment. Just be careful if you are going to work on these. Also, the older Fisher equipment is good tube stuff too. I run a Fisher X-100 integrated. On the odd chance you see McIntosh equipment, it is very desirable.

[cheshirecat]

Actually Dynaudio and Dynaco are different companies.  Dynaco gear was sold under both the Dynaco and Dynakit names.  Most of their gear was sold in both kit and pre built form.  Since they came as kits (same with Eico) you should be able to dig up a manual which will have step by step instructions to put the thing together (along with all the necessary precautionary warnings).  I forgot about Fisher, they also had several models that still get very favorable reviews over at the vintage asylum

Some specific Dynaco amps to look for:
Stereo 70 -- 35 WPC EL34 based stereo amp
Mark IV -- 40 WPC EL34 based mono block
Mark III -- 60? WPC KT88/6550 based mono block
Mark II -- 50? WPC EL34 based mono block
Stereo 35 -- 17.5 WPC EL84 based stereo amp

Dynaco Pre:
PAS2 or PAS 3  -- the PAS2 and PAS3 were the same internals with a different face plate, the 2x and 3x variations had special trebble and bass pots that took themselves out of the circuit when put at the 12 o'clock position.  This is a 4x 12AX7 (Dynaco used telefunken tubes, run at 11V so they're almost always good as new, and worth some dough)

Eico:
HF-87 -- 4xEL34 stereo amp, comparable design to the dynaco, supposedly good iron was used, haven't heard one though
HF-85 -- 5x12AX7 stereo preamp -- very nice sounding
HF-81 -- EL84 with 12AX7 based integrated amp -- gets favorable reviews


Lemmie know if you do end up picking something up, I should be able to point you in the right direction for some info.  Also, if you do pick something up, don't just plug it in and flip it on (as tempting as it may be).  You should bring it up slowly (or replace some key capacitors straight away) to avoid frying tubes or trannies, old caps don't always behave correctly once they have dried out  and or leaked.  One other thing to note, older tube amps don't have load resisitors in there, so they cannot be run without speakers (or some other X ohm load) attached without potentially damaging the amp.

[Kevin Straker]

. On the odd chance you see McIntosh equipment, it is very desirable.

.....and expensive as hell!