leak stereo 20

[edwar65]

Hi All, am in process of acquiring a leak stereo 20 valve amp, and just wondered whether anybody had heard of tube distinctions as a quality repairer for these and valve amps in general, as he is located in south wales,as myself too.
looking to get it checked over and heard he was a member of this forum?
any info anyone?
thanks,
tom

[walpurgis]

Does it actually need repairs?

Most jobs on these are very easy to do yourself. Changing capacitors and resistors is mainly simple. Loads of info on servicing these on the net. Just check the physical appearance of components and use a multi-meter to check and compare values.

I bought one years ago and it had no valves and some clapped out capacitors etc. I had it up and running and sounding great in a couple of days and I'd never touched a valve amp before.

It's the transformers that are the hardest to sort, but they are not the end of the world to deal with and are available second hand (at a price).

They are a superb sounding amplifier, a bit fussy about which pre-amp they're used with to sound at their best though. EAR 834L works brilliantly.

[Stratmangler]

... and just wondered whether anybody had heard of tube distinctions as a quality repairer for these and valve amps in general, as he is located in south wales,as myself too

This be the chap you're referring to http://theartofsound.net/forum/member.php?u=167

[hifi_dave]

Hi All, am in process of acquiring a leak stereo 20 valve amp, and just wondered whether anybody had heard of tube distinctions as a quality repairer for these and valve amps in general, as he is located in south wales,as myself too.
looking to get it checked over and heard he was a member of this forum?
any info anyone?
thanks,
tom

If it needs repair, service or mod, then Anthony TD is your man.

[DSJR]

To suggest soldering on such a potentially dangerous vintage item isn't something I'd do myself in all honesty, since this amp has no bottom and bad soldering can ruin a prize vintage product like this.

Anthony makes and repairs valve gear (guitar amps etc) for a living and his handiwork is well pictured (Marco's "Naked copper amp" photos :eyebrows:) and excellent as all manufacturing and service engineers should be able to do with eyes shut...


P.S. I have a nice Pye Black Box record player from the late 50's and these came with a lovely 8W amp with proper transformer coupling in both mains input and audio output. Sounded great playing 78's especially (silky), but I've been reluctant to ask him to service the caps and valve bases (the internal metal parts crumble) in case he feels insulted by the job. Nice little amp though and Pye were a HiFi manufacturer at the time IIRC...

[walpurgis]

To suggest soldering on such a potentially dangerous vintage item isn't something I'd do myself in all honesty, since this amp has no bottom and bad soldering can ruin a prize vintage product like this.

Dave, are you suggesting nobody should repair anything?

I wasn't implying anybody should repair an item badly or unsafely. But, if nobody has a go, nobody learns. Soldering and component installation are not hard to master if you're practical and use a bit of common sense.

There are quite a few of us, who may not be professional electronics technicians, but can still turn in a decent quality job. Me included.

You may call the Leak a prize product, but they were two a penny years ago and most of them have been messed about with at some time or other. The last one I had was a real mess until I refurbished it, then it looked spot on.

[The Grand Wazoo]

Go to Anthony with confidence. He's a complete gent and knows what he's talking about and doing.

He sorted my Radford amp for me a short time ago - see here (http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=22003&highlight=mission+rescue+radford)

He won't do anything that doesn't need doing and he'll discuss the whole process with you as you go along.