SONDEX S100 Valve amp - Does anyone have any information?

[Wakefield Turntables]

Now own one of these and wondered if anyone had any info.

John Widgery designed it, its a KT88 design amd pushes out 100W. It's supposed to be one of the last Radford designs.

Any more info would be nice. :)

[Audio Advent]

I can provide some info..... off the ebay listing you probably bought it from!

Sounds like it could be a good one if made by John Widgery of Woodside fame. But, using the magic of www.hifi-preise.com and cached pages to get around their pay wall, here are previous ebay listings, one of them that which your seller won last year:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sondex-s100-Improoved-Radford-tt100-Valve-Stereo-power-amplifier-amp-/141182911578

And the others are for the original Radford TT100 so hopefully the sound should be similar if not the same:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Radford-TT100-Power-Amplifier-with-New-KT88-Valves-Tubes-/301395716744

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Radford-TT100-Stereo-Power-Amplifier-UK-built-Valve-Solid-State-Hybrid-V-RARE-/160735669377

[Arkless Electronics]

I believe I've got the original brochure for it somewhere.... but don't get excited as life's too short for me to spend hours looking for it!

[Wakefield Turntables]

Just spoken to Will @Radford Revival. Sounds like this amp ironed out a few design issues from the Sondex T100 and possibly carries a lot of the design features of the STA100 :eek:. My example needs a good service and complete inspection. So, come new year it'll be packaged off to Will and hopefully I should have some measurements regards the KT88's, distortion, transformer power etc etc. I'll probably not be updating this thread until then.

[Audio Advent]

Don't you mean that the Sondex S100 irons out design issues from the Radford TT100? Or that this one, serial number 035 has had mods done so irons out design probs of other Sondex S100s?

[Radford Revival]

The rough lineage goes STA100 -> TT100 -> S100, where bits and pieces (largely the transformer designs) were carried over. The TT100 used fully solid state driver circuitry including an opamp front-end. The S100 was supposed to be an improvement upon the TT100, from memory it was slightly simplified too.

[Wakefield Turntables]

Thanks for your input Will. I will hopefully be picking this up in the next few days.

[Radford Revival]

Thanks for your input Will. I will hopefully be picking this up in the next few days.

Looking forward to seeing it - we've not had one here before so will be a good reference point!

[Wakefield Turntables]

As mentioned when I spoke to you. You can expect it probably 2nd week in January if thats ok.

[Wakefield Turntables]

Or that this one, serial number 035 has had mods done so irons out design probs of other Sondex S100s?

That would have been stated if that was the case.

[montesquieu]

Good score! If my STA100 is anything to go by it should be fantastic with your Tannoys. (And other speakers, it sounded absolutley ace with Valvebloke's big Yammies).

[Wakefield Turntables]

Good score! If my STA100 is anything to go by it should be fantastic with your Tannoys. (And other speakers, it sounded absolutley ace with Valvebloke's big Yammies).

I actually wanted a STA100, well to be truthful I wanted a pair of STA100 monoblocks :drool:. I've been looking for 3 years and still not managed to source anything so when this came up I simply had to have it. It going to be used with the 301 and the Croft Epoch (hopefully to be fully pimped by AnthonyTD). Factor in some new RFC tannoy XO's and I should have a nice system!

[Radford Revival]

As mentioned when I spoke to you. You can expect it probably 2nd week in January if thats ok.

:thumbsup:


Everyone's on the big-displacement valve amp bandwagon it seems ;)

[Wakefield Turntables]

The Sondex arrived today, all 36kg of it. It's a big bugger. It makes my other Radford look quite weedy in comparison. Not listened to it yet and I'm not going to bother until turned January at least. Certainly very very little transformer hum and the vast majority of the weight is in the transformers. It's also a rather fetching brown colour :spew:. It has some of the Radford characteristics in the binding posts are very similar as is the bias correction. OK, maybe get some photo's tomorrow.