Affordable Valve Company

Dave, I saw your earlier post in a similar vein on a different thread. The web site looks good and I'm really glad you're happy but I'm a bit worried that there's no chance to listen and no home trial option, particularly as this is my first thermionic venture

 

Hi Tom,

more info.

The Affordable amp I have heard was the on at £1450. It doesn't have a phono stage so if you went for you would have to budget for one.

If you are a dab hand with the soldering iron, the WAD kits are worth a look.

The Kel84 is ok & will be fine as a 2nd system for casual listening. I heard this at the Bake off at Chris's. It looks easy to build. They do run out of steam at the bottom end on bass heavy tunes but are alright for a 2nd system. I think they are sensitive enough to try with a passive.

The Kit/Kat 34s & Kit/Kat 6550 are worth a look but as Data has mentioned are harder to build. I would go for either the 2AE PSE amp or the 300B mono amps. The 300b PSE monos do sound very good & woud beat a lot of amps at that price. They offer a very good level of refinement & drive to the music.

I would try & pop down to WAD for a listen. the only problem with WAD kits are that delivery can be hit or miss. I got a passive kit of them which I ordered at the start of the year. It took till March to arrive. It didn't have the knobs with it. These didn't arrive till October.

On the 2nd hand front, you have a big choice. As for buying 2nd hand, there are many shops that sell valve kit & many people who can service it so this takes a lot of the pain out of buying. There is always an element of risk buying from a private sale or on ebay but if problems occur they can be fixed.

Is a kit better than 2nd hand? Not always. You can still have problems with kits plus if they are badly put together then big problems cam occur.

Items from Croft, Audionote, Audio Innovations, EAR & Audion are some of the makes in your price range. Also look out for Quad & leak items which can be picked tweaked or untweaked & would go well in a 2nd system.

As you are in Peterborough, you could pop into the Trading Station on Cowgate. They have a selection of items that may suit. Also Emporium have a big stock of valve gear which you can have a listen to.

SCIDB

 

Didn't the Trading Station close down late last year?

reg

 

Hi Reg,


They have advertised in this months Hi-fi World & have a website.

http://www.hifitradingstation.com

I think there was a change of ownership. They may have gone bust before the changeover.


SCIDB

 

1) On the knobs thing - this was still a problem very recently when I was speaking to them last. Shouldnt be a problem if you get a power amp only.

2) Yes, thats true - when my valve amps have gone wrong in the past, the bill is usually £60-£120 which isnt so very bad really.

3) On a kit, again Deans dead right - a lot depends on the build. If you get a kit company to professionally build it for you, you get by this problem, and have a take-back if there are problems.

On second hand valve stuff (as with any class A stuff second hand) heat and time will have shortened the life of some components. Bad implementation of circuit boards in all the wrong places is a common problem.

NB Tom - I was bidding against you for that GRAAF - shame neither of us got it by the way. It would have been a real bargain.
nevermind

Chris

 

hmm not suprising trading station went bust...not exactly cheap...

I fancy a BP amp one day scidb, how does it do bass, is it a little on the light side compared to a PP?, and I suspect otls are a bit on the quirky side too....I am probably a PP type really...want to avoid a costly mistake. years ahead tho'

mind you have you seen those manley 300bs pp and pse at the flick of a switch, best of both worlds...

 

Hi

This can be true. But there are plenty valve amps which have lasted a long time. Just look at the the number of Quads & Leaks (& others) still around. Components do age but this applies with any electronic equipment. Careful design, quality components & layout does reduce this. At work, there are pieces of valve test kit which date from the 60s & have had very little done to them. Valve amps can & do last a long time.

Hi Data,

Some of the items they have sold are not as cheap as private but some are good value for a shop. I have bought some stuff off them in the past which was priced well.

Yes they do bass. What you must realise that these amps are different to a lot of single ended amps out there. They don't have the faults of a lot of them. Single ended amps can major on the mid range but can be soft, limp, indistinct or light in the extremes. They can be made quite cheaply due to the small number of components in the signal path. But if you go to town, good results can be had.

The Border Patrol design strengths are

1) The use of triodes through out giving excellent linerity

2) No negative feedback. Due to the use of triodes

3) Good circuit design. low noise amp.

3) Quality components.

4) Interstage transforrmers. Gives very good drive for the 300Bs.

5) Quality output transformers. Give a wide frequency response & less distortion.

6) Choke input power supplies. Gives very good regulation & less noise on the power supply.

All these help the sound quality. The 300B have an excellent sounding mid range but can produce the goods on the extremes when carefully designed. I also find a lot of triodes may sound leaner than pentodes & tetrodes. They are more linear.

You will get a bigger bass sound with other valve amp but not always the speed, dynamics, control, detail & resolution.

I like the overall performance of this amp & prefer it to a large number of Push Pull amps I have heard. This includes areas where the push pull is meant to be king. Whether you perfer it to over amps, I don't know.


The downsides are

1) the cost new. £4500. I got mine ex-dem.

2) The price of Western electric 300Bs. You can get a good range of 300Bs which are on par or better than the Western 300Bs.

3) the low power of 9 watts. Not a big problem if you have high sensitive speakers. Can be used with lower sensitive speakers, it all depends how loud you listen.

The main points of the design can be applied to push pull valve amps. Border patrol now do a range. There is a Push pull with all the design features but with another power supply box. (This contains three choke input supplies.) This means the amp has six in total. There is also a Parallel single ended (18 watts ) with two box supplies.

I do hope to compare the push pull v Single ended.

I have heard a few OTLs in my time. I have mixed opinions of them. They have never appeared to me as being loads better than an amp with a output transformer. But the Graaf ones are interesting looking ones.

Maybe, maybe not. Go on amps on their ability to perform. If you go to town on any type of amp, you will get good results.

SCIDB

 

AFAIK The Trading Station is (and always has been) a subsidiary of The HiFi Company in Cowgate. The HiFi Company has recently joined the KJ West group (joined/was bought by/went bust and was bought by - take your pick). The staff have remained the same. My experience with the HiFi Company is that some of the staff are very friendly, some less so but they have a very generous home demo policy and their prices (after a bit of a haggle) are within 10% of the lowest that I could find on the net. All in all, I would say that you should support your local dealer if you live in the Peterborough area. On the side of the road (The Trading Station) the manager is less friendly and they now operate an 'appointment only' visit policy, so you can't just drop in to have a look at what they've got in stock (but they've just updated their website with photos). Their prices are not particularly competitive but I suppose that's comparing them with private/eBay sales which isn't fair. (e.g. Audio Research VT100 MK1 at £3500, Cary CAD 300SE monos at £4000, GRAAF GM20 at £1900, Quad Fourty Two at £3000). Against other second hand shops they aren't too bad I guess and at least you get the same home demo facility as the HiFi Company.

We also have a Sevenoaks in Peterborough staffed by Friendly people and willing to do home demos - usual limited range of stock though.

 

had an audionote kit 1 once...nice design and build but a bit a a limp lettuce...

BP very interesting design with the psu and i/s tx

 

Having heard SCIDB's BP at Bottleneck's place earlier on this year, I can definitely confirm that they can kick ass down below with the authority and control of a stereotypical tranny amp, but yet has the mids of a great (stereotype again?) valve amp. The best of both worlds is the BP, IMO. The secret's inside the external PSU I'd guess.