I recently bought the Whole Deal kit from Bottlehead and have been exploring it in my very scarce spare time ;).

I have built the basic kit, upgraded the caps to Solen 3.3uf in coupling, .1uf bypass to Auricap and put Bybee filters in the B+ voltage and at the analog inputs.

The sound is VERY good, especially considering the basic kit price of $150 and the Whole Deal kit price of $275.

Is it a world beater? Well, no, but it is a VERY good kit and is unbeatable for the money.

I bought it to explore tube amp design further and for a fun project. I am pleasantly surprised at how musical it is. It was recently bettered by my friend Kevin's Grounded Grid preamp. But, he also does have Jensen oil caps and a DACT attenuator in the unit and I am still using Solen caps and stock Mouser pots.

The Grounded grid had a more coherent sound and better imaging. It is another VERY nice design and also highly recommended.

The preamp kits are an excellent way to explore tube design due to their relative simplicity and low cost ;).

I would encourage anyone interested in building their own tube equipment, whether newbie or experienced, to consider either of these kits. They are both very musical and offer an excellent platform for experimentation.

I intend to install a 100k stereo DACT CT-2 attenuator in my Foreplay next, followed by upgrading the 3.3uf Solen's to 5-10uf Auricaps. After that, I plan to upgrade the stock 220uf-200V Xicon electrolytics to Black Gate WK Power Tanks ;). After that, who knows? DC heaters, dual or tri transformers? We'll have to wait and see.

Dan W.