Tír Na HiFi

I was talking to the fella that has the quads etc up for sale. He seems sound enough, its essentially an estate sale. He was driving an e-type jag to a buyer as I was talking to him...... nice car!!

Anyway, I was interested in a dynaco ST70 he has up - thinking of some EL34 goodness for my quads.

For anyone interested in the other stuff I'd say he would move a bit on price. Depending on condition, the 57's might be a good buy. If anyone is interested, they're worth a look/listen at least. Fella is in Greystones.


Fran

i say absolutely yes to the dynaco! perfect for the quads. supercharge it with new caps and resistors and you're good to go. and the market for dynaco is huge, like the aftermarket for old minis or vw bugs: everyone and his brother has updated versions of the oem parts.

-b

Yeah, the thing is he's looking for way too much for it - really I'm buying the iron and chassis. The big quad cap is likely gone too, so I'd want to allow for a bit of parts.

There's another el34 amp there at the moment too but it looks like a Chinese import....

affordable valve company...they were talking about them on pinkfish a while ago, they are good...but check ebay for the craziest ads you ever seen...

Well I went down to the fella last night and came away with the amp. On the up side, the amp is a very early model, and according to t'interweb, these were the ones with the best transformers, unequalled even today. It also had the original dynaco rebranded mullard EL34 tubes and what looks like RCA 7199 tubes. Chassis is in err, old condition.

So all in all, I didn't get a bargain, but it was a fair price, eg, to get the same transformers new today ( and these would be new manufactured clones) would have cost more.

Now, I'm under no illusion that it will need a revalve, plus it will need a little bit of a refurb - new RCA jacks etc. Also, I have a decision to make about whether I simply replace all the old resistors/caps or else go the route of the new driver boards etc. Its likely that this is the best way to go I think. That'll add about €200 all in I'd say.

So I did hook it up last night and it does sound very sweet. Surprisingly good in fact. Now the bass is a bit sloppy - but this is well documented on the various fora. Apparently in the originals the PS needs a bit of beefing up to help with that. To be honest I didn't expect it to sound as good as it does and it looks like it might well be a keeper. I had made up my mind before hand what I was willing to pay if they were the early transformers with cloth leads or later types and stuck to that. I'm happy enough with what I paid in the end. My hunch (that I've put money down on!) is that it will sound very good with a new driver board and beefed up PS.

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The fella I bought it off was essentially cleaning out his parents house for sale after the passing of his father. May I say, his father had excellent taste... an e-type jag and a triumph stag in the drive, along with a few old BMWs.

I took a look at the ESL57s when I was there. They look in pretty good condition, there are a few dents on one of the grilles, and I reckon they date from the early 70s. I didn't hear them, but they look like they are OK. The fella himself says he tried them out and there was no crackling etc. He wouldn't have hifi ears though. If the panels are alright (and thats likely given the type of amps that were obviously used to drive them), they might well be a good buy.

Also, I took a look at the QuadII amps. They look in very good nick and the valves look brand new. They have the older connectors - the type where you can connect them and turn them on via the quad 22 preamps (also there as well). I think his price is fair enough on those - it'd be hard to find them for less anywhere else. Like the 57s, there are fans of the QuadII sound and those that think they aren't all that hot. Regardless, they are desireable to many.

The fella himself is easy to deal with, good comms, and its all genuine stuff. He'll bargain a bit with you so keep that in mind, the more you buy, the better deal you'll get. He won't give stuff away though.


On the affordable valve amp.... I did think long and hard about it but in the end the thing that swung it was the old transformers and their reputation in the dynaco plus the fact that there is much info out there on the dynaco. It's probably still a very good deal, and would have bought it if thios other one didn't come up.

Fran

Fair play Fran, I think you're on to a winner there. I got EL34s in X Music which were for Peavey guitar amps but are actually Electro Harmonix. Not expensive and they do sound nice.
Good luck with it.

Congrats Fran you are great at hunting out the bargains. The other amp looks very good also wish I had the money floating around. Have to wait for a pay rise. Best of luck with the amp

sounds like you got a good deal. let me know if you need any links for parts or updated driver boards. in the meantime, there's sheldon stokes who manufactures and designes his own just to mate with ESL57s, in addition to being one of the few quad guys i trust for a rebuld. also try DIYTUBEcom (with a very informed forum), or this one fella with the stupid firm name of tubes4hifi (it used to be Vacuum Tube Audio in the 80's; this is the fella (Roy Mottrom)who built my EL84 PPP monoblocks.

-b

oh- Gary Jacobson in Australia suggested to me that wiring up each set of the 57's in paralell using the 16ohm tap instead of the 8ohm is a good idea; the parralell setup tricks it into running at 8ohms . takes care of those nasty mood swings.

Barry - the Roy Mottrom stuff looks good. That might just be the ticket. A lot of the others I've read about seem to make you do both the driver board and the power supply, whereas his is kinda combined into one.

I've just sent him a mail....


Fran

Order placed with Ray.....