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In Reply to: RE: Looking for a good-value tubed integrated amp posted by tvr2500m on October 7, 2014 at 10:52:40:
Hi again,
Ok, so you're not married to the MMGs... Well there are lots of nice smaller integrated amps to consider. My personal favorite is the Sherwood S-5000. It won't drive an MMG well at all, but for speakers 89db and up, it's fine. There's a lot to like about this amp - it's small, powerful for a 7189 pair (24W) and has an excellent preamp section with sensible, usable tone curves. The phono section is fantastic, especially if the amp still has the original Telefunken 12AX7s in it. Never tried it with moving coils, but with moving magnets from Grado to Stanton, I have been very satisfied with its performance. A selectable rumble filter takes subsonics out of warped records very nicely.
Downsides are the use of 7199s, and the higher plate voltage which makes standard 6BQ5/EL84 a bit of a gamble, and some versions can sometimes present with LF resonances in the power supply.
The earlier versions are best, they are slightly longer and have a slanted pre-amp section as opposed to the later version where the preamp tubes were under a square cover.
The Scott 299 is a good 6BQ5 amp, and looks really awesome, though I've never found one that sounded as good as the Sherwood S-5000, which has more power, better bass control, and better tone controls.
The SCA-35 is not one of my favorite amps at all. I find its sound to be a bit anemic, and the size of the output iron doesn't leave much mystery as to why. An upgraded ST-70, although not integrated, is a much better sounding and performing amplifier.
Now that new production 7591s are available, there are other Sherwood integrateds that I have always regarded as promising, although I largely divested myself of them back in the late 90's when 7591s were impossible to find. There are also some Sherwood integrated receivers that use 7868s, and have very excellent tuners (check if the multiplex unit is in there first!)
Fisher 500C is a great receiver provided it has been properly restored.
If you go the S-5000 route, drop me a line. Since it is my favorite amp, I have worked on a lot of them and know about some gotchas, tricks, and mistakes found in the schematics.
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Follow Ups
- RE: Looking for a good-value tubed integrated amp - Sherwood Forest 11:50:15 10/07/14 (2)
- RE: Looking for a good-value tubed integrated amp - Michael Samra 12:47:36 10/10/14 (1)
- RE: Looking for a good-value tubed integrated amp - Sherwood Forest 12:55:49 10/10/14 (0)
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