affordable valve company not responding

[monty99]

Well here are the piccies:

... and took the opportunity to correct the Knowlegeable Lim's mistake of calling it a Class A amp when, in actual fact, it's a class AB Push Pull Ultralinear. So off came the innaccurate "Class A" and on went AVC (stenciled via some WHSmiths transfers). You can also see my home-made tube rings for the pre-amp 5670W's:

Didn't I read on his web page that there's no such thing as a Class A amp unless it has transformers the size of a house, therefore the whole industry is lying to people?

If he's describing his amps on the faceplate as Class A and they aren't then he's breaking the law ...

Personally I wouldn't deal with him at all, his hysterical witterings are more than enough to put me off, it's clear before you go near the company what sort of idiot you would be dealing with. The fact he would go to such effort writing complete crap about competitors' products tell you everything you need to know about the man.

 

[Ray1000]

Lim used to be very courteous to me on the phone. I felt that I needed replacement valves and asked him for a quote, to which he said £50 for 4 5670's and 4 EL34's (svetlana winged c). I gave him my credit card details and patiently waited. And waited. A long time passed.
Then a strange thing happened to one of the EL34's. It suddenly started buzzing and glowing bright white/blue (like a bulb). I immediately switched off the amp and let it cool for a few hours. During this time I contacted Lim and spoke to his assistant who said that I had done the correct thing. As he passed the phone to Lim I overheard Lim saying "Gaffer is the type of person who...." I didn't quite catch the rest. He then got the reciever and started spouting on about "not freezing valves as they shorten valve life".....eh? what? who asked anything about freezing valves? and what sort of a person am i?....anyway I bit my lip in case I had got the wrong end of the stick and told Lim what had happened. He told me to send the amp back to him so that he could ascertain what valves to replace them with and if anything was wrong with the amp. A couple of hours later I unplugged all the valves and re-seated them snuggly. I cautiously switched back on (yeah..silly i know) and the amp was fine. Delighted I rang Lim and he said "oh...er ...well in that case...er...it must have been the valves not being seated properly. You'll be fine now. No need to send the amp back. I'll send you replacement valves. I already have your card details."
I must admit I wasn't really satisfied with his explanation as the valves hadn't been touched previously and this had never happened before...but then again, everything was fine now.
It's now 1-2 months later yet again. Still no sign of replacement valves. So i keep, waiting. The amp has done nothing odd despite continual use since then.
I had asked Lim for the bias readings for the amp for replacement valves as it is fixed bias, but he refused to give them to me saying that "only he could supply correctly biased replacements".
I contacted thetubestore.com who have e-mailed me to say that they can send replacements "of an average bias that should work well".
Do i:
*wait for Lim to send me replacements (for how long I don't know, and I didn't really like the way he talked about me so I don't want to be reliant on him for spares)
*despite not knowing the bias, let thetubestore.com send me their 'best guess' replacement tubes and risk them not being optimised for the amp
*alternatively how can i find out the settings needed for the valves so that I can order replacements from anywhere?

PS I would love to use this amp as a "second system" and buy a brand new Prima Luna Prologue 2 amp and never have to worry about bias settings again (although this would be too expensive for me so will remain a pipe dream for now ).

thanx for any ideas/help

I concur with all the opinions, I bought a EL34 from Lim about 7 years ago.
I sent him an extra £100 for two extra sets of valves, the amp arrived (beautifully packed) but the two spare sets of valves were not with it. He told me that they didn't have valve's of the values needed for my amp and he would send them on when he got the next order in. After about 6 months I still hadn't got the replacement valves. On calling I got fobed of several times. I ended up taking other goods to the value of the £100.
I don't think anyone will ever have got a full set of winged C and 5670 valves for the £50 he stated on his site. I can only imagine that it is a ploy to get people to buy from him as replacement valves are only £50.
The amp is OK, but, there are much better amps around!
The fact that Lim is so arrogant and guarded around (his amp design) is very of putting. When I compare Lim's attitude with someone like the talented Les at Avondale Audio who would go out of his way to assist you with technical stuff even when your not buying from him,,,,,,,, well just say I won't but from Lim ever again!

 

[The General]

The General

Bought Lim el34 in 2005. June 2014 decided time for new valves, have tried every kind of messaging to AVC, 1 reply saying had flue, would deal with my need for valves within 1 day, never did, I have kept messaging, phone, ebay, text, email to lim, not 1 reply, so bought 4 KT66, mayched up, found a PA Company a few miles from me, they set up bias for £36, and it now sounds great, better than ever.

Point is nothings changed at AVC, its still impossible to get a reply.

Avoid them.