What would you never buy again? What would you like to own again?

[Haselsh1]

There is one thing I definitely will agree on though regarding valves and trannies. I have used a 600 Watt studio amp before, tranny of course, and the bass performance was gut wrenching and staggering in its effortless power. Now for electronic music that sound was completely awesome but I am afraid that for me, the midrange always wins out and there valves win every time.

[struth]

i must have been lucky as I dont have a long list of stuff I wouldnt buy again. only the 2 currently come to mind. Thats not to say I would swap stuff back but just I wouldnt feel overly cheated if I had to

[Neil McCauley]

There is one thing I definitely will agree on though regarding valves and trannies. I have used a 600 Watt studio amp before, tranny of course, and the bass performance was gut wrenching and staggering in its effortless power. Now for electronic music that sound was completely awesome but I am afraid that for me, the midrange always wins out and there valves win every time.

I have had similar experiences and I share your conclusions. Neil

[Haselsh1]

I have had similar experiences and I share your conclusions. Neil

It's good that we agree Neil but I do understand that our individual appreciation of how our music is represented is totally personal to each of us. Clearly they were my findings over a period of thirty years or so and clearly you share those findings. For me, valves have a quite unique sound all of their own which again for me make them way superior to transistors. They do not though have that gut wrenching bass excitement. I made my final decision late last year.

[SLS]

It's good that we agree Neil but I do understand that our individual appreciation of how our music is represented is totally personal to each of us. Clearly they were my findings over a period of thirty years or so and clearly you share those findings. For me, valves have a quite unique sound all of their own which again for me make them way superior to transistors. They do not though have that gut wrenching bass excitement. I made my final decision late last year.

I fully appreciate your point, it is personal. Valves just don't give a full range sound with most modern speakers as they are just too insensitive, for the obvious and basic reason that solid state watts are cheap. The economics of getting high sensitivity speakers to run a low powered valve amplifier make no sense to me. With good 86db speakers and oodles of power, there is no need to compromise and I don't miss my Class A 300B-XLS amp one bit. When I think what is cost it makes me want to cry.

[Barry]

I agree with Shaun about running hot, spit would just bubble on the heatsinks, but the reliability of mine was very good. However I did not stick with Nelson-Jones' layout and made mine less compact.

Its bass was tighter than both the Lowther and the 303, and the top better than the 405, but the mid not so.
Built in '72, largely whilst stoned, it ran until I sold it to an ex girl friend in '92 and AFAIK ran on.

My experience Barry with Mullard 5-10s was with RS transformers, only a lucky few got Partridges.

Whilst I had built several valve amps in my youth, for some reason I feel no compulsion to build any more power amps, but I could be interested in building a preamp or phono stage using either hybrid technology or Nuvistor or miniature wire-ended valves.

The Nelson-Jones design had an excellent specification; one of the reasons why I was attracted to building it and to Class A circuitry in general. Each output power transistor was mounted on its own, widely spaced, vertical 4" x 4" finned heatsink (having a thermal resistance of, I think, 0.5degC/W), yet the amp still ran hot. A problem with all Class A designs.

I still have most of the components available to rebuild it, but I now use Quad 57s and find 10W capacity insufficient to drive them properly.


Likewise my direct experience of the Quad 303 has only been with Quad 57s. You are not alone in finding the 303 lacking (though interestingly the BBC used hundreds of them) - Jez Arkless of this parish is of like mind. But there is a synergy in performance with the 303 driving Quad 57s: at low frequencies the output capacitor of the 303 resonates with the inductance of the input transformer of the speaker, which not only flattens the speaker impedance curve but extends the low frequency response. It is interesting to speculate whether Peter Walker knew of it - I suspect he did.

[Haselsh1]

I fully appreciate your point, it is personal. Valves just don't give a full range sound with most modern speakers as they are just too insensitive, for the obvious and basic reason that solid state watts are cheap. The economics of getting high sensitivity speakers to run a low powered valve amplifier make no sense to me. With good 86db speakers and oodles of power, there is no need to compromise and I don't miss my Class A 300B-XLS amp one bit. When I think what is cost it makes me want to cry.

Ah but the sound I get from my current sound system when compared to over thirty years worth of systems proves that it is not a compromise in your terms. The only way big valve power amps fall down is in expense. Come to think of it, so do big trannie amps.

[SLS]

Ah but the sound I get from my current sound system when compared to over thirty years worth of systems proves that it is not a compromise in your terms. The only way big valve power amps fall down is in expense. Come to think of it, so do big trannie amps.

I had a system with Quad QMP, MDAC+, Vinyl 1 Ref phono amp, and other bits and bobs. Selling the whole lot and replacing with Devialet Pro 250 left me cash in hand and significantly better sound. I had previously traded down from a £6,000 (second hand) top notch valve amp (sold for £4,500) to the QMP that cost £1,500. The QMP were better than the valve amp, but not up to the Devialet.
The Devialet is so good it has completely cured me of audiophilia and I only popped in here to edit a sale tread now sold!

I would add that Harbeth stopped me worrying about speakers ever again.

[Pharos]

I agree Brian the spec was very good, especially for the time, but it had three coupling caps in the path, and direct coupling was soon to follow - Lecson AP1 and Quad 405 also I believe.

Using the NJ with my first ESS Heils, and on Michael Hedges' Aerial Boundaries, it superimposed a sense of real HF speed which was not apparent on other amps, and which Jez has attributed to TIM. Several people said the there was "something there that shouldn't be there".

I haven't used a valve amp since '74, and feel that SS amps are now so good as to be pretty well ignored as near perfect.
A friend has Benchmarks, the specs and sound are stunning.

[Haselsh1]

Unfortunately, every trannie amplifier I have listened to since 1978 with the exception of the Musical Fidelity 'Dr Thomas' totally lacks the liquid purity of midrange that a valve amplifier has in shovel loads. There is simply no comparison in midrange where transistors and valves are concerned. That purity and fluidity is unsurpassed and when regarding the high excessive cost of valve amplifiers, really good trannie amps are just as costly. The difference of course is that the market is flooded with cheap, nasty trannie amps of very low cost and performance. The same is not true of valve amps numerically.