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Audioromy FU29 amp

Posted by triamp on March 26, 2011 at 05:38:17:

I bought one of these off eBay and waited 2 months for surface shipping - which is the cheapest way to get something from China. It arrived safely and was well packed.
These are sometimes advertised as SINGLE ENDED amps, but they are PUSH PULL! This amp is NOT an ultralinear design, just a pure tetrode topology. The FU29 is an 829 dual tetrode. This is a beam power tube that was used in radar sets of yesterday as a keyer, and also used as output stage in 40's/50's VHF transmitters. etc. There are only two output tubes on this stereo amp so some people may think it single-ended, but note that each tube has TWO plate caps; there are TWO tetrodes in each tube's glass envelope.
The amp is biased class A. Construction quality was so-so. Cosmetics are very nice, however.
It puts out about 30 watts a channel. Sound on my Quad ESL-57's was pretty good. Had better low end extension than I expected. Actually, it had much better bass than I expected. It was not up to the bass power of my Citation II, but it was not thin sounding. Mids were nice, treble clean.
I tried this on a number of speakers. It sounded OK on my Quad ESL-57's, but really they want more power.
Then I connected a pair of budget speakers -Polk RT25i - and, wow! There was definite HIGH END sound. Budget high end, certainly- no sub-bass extension was in evidence. But GREAT musicality. Something about the interaction between the crossovers and drivers in these Polks and the Audioromy amp made some real magic. The warmth, the silky highs, the richness of the mids and the soundstage- just great for a budget system. WAY better sound than $500 worth of gear had any right to sound. Played loud, too.
I didn't have any other box speakers at the time to try it with, but I can heartily recommended it with the Polk Rt25i- which you can pick up for a song.
Trying some solid state amps on the Polk RT25i gave me better bass, but were very disappointing otherwise. Even a pair of bridged class-A Monarchy SM70 (the original, true class A SM70 amps-) did not sound as warm or engaging as the Audioromy. And, trying a re-capped Dynaco ST-70 on the Polk Rt25i did not sound as good either- the highs from the Dynaco sounded muted and lacked detail. The highs from the Audioromy FU29 had real good detail, and silky sparkle - yet were not etched sounding or sibilance-exaggerating. It had "modern tube amp sound" compared to the venerable Dynaco.
SO: this is a pretty good sounding amp, and with the right speakers will give you what you look to a tube amp to provide. Looks nice, too.
After a month, one of the preamp tubes failed. $12 and $3.50 shipping from some online tube store fixed that. Otherwise, no reliability issues at all with this amp, it is in daily use.