Valve amp projects

[Welder]

A friend of mine died recently and his wife asked me to help sort out his collection of Hi Fi bits she found in the attic.
Anyway we found what seem to be a couple of incomplete projects and I wondered if either of these is worth salvaging.
Steve was a competent guy when it came to electronics so I’m assuming this was “under development” and what is there is fundamentally sound, just not finished.

This would seem to be the Affordable Valve Co EL34 triode silver integrated. The valves all seem to be okay, but all the guts are out of the chassis, there is no faceplate, or control knobs, or RCA connectors.
None of the above is a problem; I can make or buy the missing bits.
What I don’t know is whether such a project is worth the time and expense. I haven’t heard any of the Affordable Valve Co kit and I cant find out much about them apart from the unintelligible blurb on their ebay site.
Anyone know anything about this amp?
What do you think its worth in the state described?

The other pile of bits that looks as if it was a World Audio Design Integrated Amp kit.
Unfortunately the circuit board and instructions are missing and there are no valves for it. What he has done is laid out plans to hardwire. His drawings are all there and all the components (bar the valves) but once again, an incomplete case.
I have no idea which model this is but the date on the box is 07/2006.
WAD site is hopeless now as it only shows the “new” range so I wondered if anyone had any info on WAD kits around this date.
Better still, anyone had experience of WAD integrated from this era?
Is this worth salvaging?

The bottom line is this; I want to give a fair price for one or both.
I don’t want to go to the trouble and expense of putting them back together if they weren’t all that to start with so “just because they’re valve and therefore must be worth saving” isn’t of any interest to me.



(aff, sry Marco, stuck this in the wrong section. Feel free to move it)

[Clive]

John,

Affordable Valve stuff was not kit so it's hard to know what a modified amp like this could be worth...if you can work what's been done to it.

Re the WAD amp, it may have been hard wired from the outset, eg KiT 34 or 6550. A pic would help greatly.

[John]

The Affordable Valve gear used to be sold on ebay (think still is; some of the worst advertising I seen ) I never heard any of their stuff
http://www.affordablevalvecompany.com/products.htm
The WAD gear would be well worth the effort
As Clive said pictures would help

[spendorman]

The Affordable Valve gear used to be sold on ebay (think still is; some of the worst advertising I seen ) I never heard any of their stuff
http://www.affordablevalvecompany.com/products.htm
The WAD gear would be well worth the effort
As Clive said pictures would help

A few years ago I bought their basic EL34 amp for a fussy friend, was very well made, sounded very good. Trouble is that the price for a similar amp from them has increased massively.

[Welder]

Thanks for the replies.

Yeah, pics would help but unfortunately I don’t own a camera not does my mates wife and popping up to Hertfordshire to take a few pics under the circumstances isn’t really on
However, I’ve got his drawings here and now I have some idea of what I might be looking at (thanks Clive) the WAD looks like its KIT 6550 with some upgrade plans.
(Now I know what the 6550C and 5U4G Svetlana valves were for)
It looks like he planned an all ally enclosure and got rid of those ghastly tag boards along with a few cap changes.
As far as I can tell from my list all the components are there; just didn’t recognize what they were for at the time
I’ve got plenty of ally sheet, think I’ve got some ¼ sheet for the faceplate somewhere as well so I can machine up a case.
I don’t need loads of outputs and I can use an internal jumper and get rid of the selector pot and exactly match input impedances while I’m at it.
Looks like a goer
So, I’ve seen Tony Moore’s post here but I still have no idea as to what one of these can sound like.
If it’s the usual floppy bass and silky undefined treble common to many low powered valve amps I’m not certain it’s worth the bother; been there
It will need to drive my Volts. They have a nice steady impedance range (it’s the impedance shift that causes problems in my experience rather than low or high) and are reasonably efficient.

Any thoughts on the performance of this kit?
What’s it worth?

As for the Affordable Valve Co amp, need a lot more info than I can get from their ebay site before I sort this pile of bits out.

[spendorman]

Thanks for the replies.

Yeah, pics would help but unfortunately I don’t own a camera not does my mates wife and popping up to Hertfordshire to take a few pics under the circumstances isn’t really on
However, I’ve got his drawings here and now I have some idea of what I might be looking at (thanks Clive) the WAD looks like its KIT 6550 with some upgrade plans.
(Now I know what the 6550C and 5U4G Svetlana valves were for)
It looks like he planned an all ally enclosure and got rid of those ghastly tag boards along with a few cap changes.
As far as I can tell from my list all the components are there; just didn’t recognize what they were for at the time
I’ve got plenty of ally sheet, think I’ve got some ¼ sheet for the faceplate somewhere as well so I can machine up a case.
I don’t need loads of outputs and I can use an internal jumper and get rid of the selector pot and exactly match input impedances while I’m at it.
Looks like a goer
So, I’ve seen Tony Moore’s post here but I still have no idea as to what one of these can sound like.
If it’s the usual floppy bass and silky undefined treble common to many low powered valve amps I’m not certain it’s worth the bother; been there
It will need to drive my Volts. They have a nice steady impedance range (it’s the impedance shift that causes problems in my experience rather than low or high) and are reasonably efficient.

Any thoughts on the performance of this kit?
What’s it worth?

As for the Affordable Valve Co amp, need a lot more info than I can get from their ebay site before I sort this pile of bits out.

Don't be put off by Affordable's terrible site, they do aim to please and offered a money back guarantee if amp is not to one's liking.

There was no way the one I got was going back and it has performed faultlessly, probably about four years now.

[Ali Tait]

Nick is the man to ask about the 6550 as he had one.I heard it a few times but it was many years ago,but I remember it being a good PP amp with plenty of drive and a ballsy sound. The WAD stuff was all very good indeed and it would be well worth getting it running imo. Tweaks should still be available in the FAQ's on the WD site.

[Ali Tait]

Nick should be able to supply the circuit diagram too,or if not,Richard on WD will help you out.

[lurcher]

This is what I have.

http://www.lurcher.org/nick/KiT6550crt.pdf

[DSJR]

WD stuff isn't sloppy old valvey tat, as if it was, the gear would have been all but still-born and Mr Cawley wouldn't have felt inclined to buy the business and forum.. I'm sure both amps are well worth the effort TBH.