Any Dynaco/kit owners here, former, now? Kit builders, fans, haters?

Built several Dynaco kits back around 1974-75.

For my friend I built a Dynaco ST 150 amp, FM 5 tuner, & Pat 5 bi-fet pre amp.

I also built some home made speakers for him, each cab had 2x12" Herald Eminence woofers, with 2 soft dome mids 1 soft dome tweeter with custom designed crossovers from Madisound, all in large sealed cabs I built. Added in an Empire 698 turntable with an Empire 2000Z cartridge.

To this day almost 40 years later he is still using this system, only change is a Shute V15 VST V ULTRA GROUP BLACK SE CARTRIDGE and a classic Sansui CD-X711 CD player.

For myself, I built a Dynaco ST 416 with C 100 cap bank, Pat 5 bi fet pre amp, PS Audio phono stage preamp, huge ducted port speakers with 2x15" EV 15B woofers, an EV mid horn and EV T 350 Tweeter. Had an Empire 698 turntable with an Empire 2000Z cartridge and a JVC KD 85 cassette deck to top it off.

Cassett deck is dead gone, speakers are parted out, amp, pre, phono stage and turntable are still here and operational.

 

I have a small Dynaco collection, far from complete but they are easy to work on, easily upgradeable and sound great.

PAM-1 (I have several of these mono amps)
Pas-3 (I have 2 of these, one modded out, the other stock)
ST-70(factory wired)
MKIII (2 of these, modded out )
A25 and A35 speaker sets

None see daily use but are fairly regular weekend warriors

I also have an FM3 and one of those quad splitter thingies. I am idly keeping my eyes out for an sca-35 to come along at the right price as well as a pair of A10s. I passed on a NOS SCA-35 unbuilt kit a few years back and kick myself daily for it.

 

I never built a Dynaco kit proper but I have restored and modified a lot of them. I have no idea how many I have repaired over the years. I gutted and rebuilt a pair of the Dynaco Mk3 60w monoblock amps. My only actual kit was a Hafler preamplifier. I just repaired and did some restoration on an ST70 for a customer who is quite happy now. I can't say that I have been a huge fan of the Dynaco stuff. Most of it was average at best. I did enjoy one of their PAS-3X preamps that I restored for some time though. That one might have been the jewel in their crown.

I am now just starting to finish a pair of 12 - 14w monoblocks that I have built pretty much from scratch. The chassis works takes quite a while and then deciding what to put in there and how to lay it out is another huge chunk of time. Then the actual assembly takes a while, so it's a long process.
-Bill

 

I have built many a Stereo 70, PAS 3x. PAS 4, SCA-35, and the likes for clients. And kitbuilt my own Stereo 70 and PAS 3x in 1973 at 9 years old. A pair of Dynaco A 25 speakers and a AR XA 91 and I had superb music reproduction.

 

More has been written on the Dynaco brand from a technical standpoint and more modifications have been done to them than on all other brands combined.

Ed Dell's The Audio Amateur magazine, very probably the best audio magazine ever published, for decades had Dyna articles or commentary in almost every issue. There have been probably a dozen businesses that offered parts, modifications or service on these units. In fact, Audio Research Corporation started out modifying Dynaco units, as did a couple of other manufacturers still in business today.

There are a great number of resources online with a wide variety of opinions on Dynaco equipment.

A good compendium of Dyna links is here:

http://leftyshefty.blogspot.com/2014/06/for-those-about-to-belatedly-and.html

http://leftyshefty.blogspot.com/2014/06/remember-beast.html

http://www.waltjung.org/waltsblog/whats-new/ed-dell-jr-an-audiophiles-editor/

 

I built a PAT-4, Stereo 120, FM-5 and Stereo 400 and did a few mods to them. Also had A25s as my main speakers when I lived in small apartments and regularly enjoyed a friend's A35s. I worked on various others owned by friends. Tremendous bang for the buck and extremely reliable. The FM-5 attracted me for low cost vs being able to receive listenable signals from the ether where no other tuner or receiver seemed to find a thing.

My 120 still works great, although I have replaced the large caps and the originally underspec power resistors. My speakers are all protected by fuses, so I have chosen not to do other reliability mods on the 120. The 400 is still going strong after doing the Van Alstine mods and a few others. The PAT-4 became an audio switching box after a rewire, as it was always just a bit too noisy--it went in the dumpster ~1995. RIP. My FM5 went on ePray about 18 months ago and only needed new tuning indicators (I put in blue LEDs) prior to sale. The A25s went to my first wife and I think she still has them. I look for A25s or A35s to this day in hopes of finding a reasonably-matched pair that are intact and not water/beer/soda damaged.

So, I am a major fan of their solid state gear and kits. I saved and saved, bought a kit from Illinois Audio or wherever with the best price, then often started it after a quick pizza and worked all night to get it done so I could hear and enjoy it. Ah, youth.

 

A few months ago I found a single MKII monoblock sitting out with the neighbor's trash! I sold the mid '50s Mullard output tubes for several hundred bucks on eBay, and am using the proceeds to finance a rebuild (including more modest output tubes). I have the parts here, but I haven't started working on it yet.

 

I got all my Dynaco from Illinois Audio.

 

Proud owner of a Dynaco ST- 416 kit that is running to this Day!!!

 

I still own the PAS3x and Syereo 70 that I aquired back in the mid 70's. I was a teenager at the time, and bought it from a friend of a friend. He was about 10 years older than myself and had purchased and built both units himself.

It hasn't been in regular use in years although it still works. I keep it more out sentiment than anything. Sold the FM-3 that I later aquired just a few years ago.

 

My first ever amplifier was a Dynaco 70 that I bought in 1989. I did several mods to it over the years and eventually sold it to a friend.

I've also owned several PAS preamps, three PAT-4s, a pair of Mark IIIs, a pair of Mark IVs, a SCA-35, a SCA-80, the AF-6 tuner, the ST-120 SS amp, and even the ST-80. All were great fun - even including the later solid-state stuff. I have even heard a pair of the rare Mark VI monoblocks.

I certainly learned a lot from Dynaco - it was on their gear that I learned to solder and make repairs, eventually giving me enough confidence to build my own gear. If I was going to go the Dynaco route again, I would probably go with a pair of new kit Dynaco Mark IIIs, and then rebuild a Dynaco PAS preamplifier to go along with 'em. Uber-fidelity? No, but very musical.

 

I built my own PAS3, Stereo70 and FM5. I remember being amazed when the tuner actually worked the first time I turned it on.

In college, I made gas/food money building kits for my less adept friends. I could knock out a Stereo 70 in an evening, a PAS3 took a bit longer. I also built many Heath and Eico kits. All done with a Weller gun.

Happy trails,
Larry B.

 

I can't do anything like acceptable soldering with a transformer gun and I have never actually witnessed anyone else do it either. Not saying it can't be done, but it is extremely difficult. More people quit and give up on soldering because of these things than about anything else. Plus which the intense magnetic fields these things give off can destroy some modern components on circuit boards.

 

All I can say in my defense is that I was young and stupid, plus it's all that I had. I wasn't even aware of pencil irons at the time. Thank heavens there were no "modern components" on the ST70's one board...and, IIRC, the other two were strictly point-to-point.

I still have that Weller gun, but nowadays I do stick to a pencil iron.

Happy trails,
Larry B.

 

There were many tube kits put together with Weller soldering guns. I had a KnightKit SpaceSpanner SW Radio that my dad put together with one of those. That was a great radio and I wish I still had it. Some of the soldering "irons" back then were huge. The Weller gun was actually not a terrible choice for some of the connections that had to be made-- 3 0r 4 solid wires on a terminal strip. He added a small Weller (with that ceramic barrel thing behind the tip) later on. I'm not sure what all that was, but it was close to what is used today. Watching him work gave me the confidence to try a Dynakit just a few years later.

 

SCA-35 (totally stock, with new Sovtek EL-84M tubes) was my first tube amp, bought for $100 in 1995? ish ... I learned how to update/upgrade/simplify etc. and took it as far as I was willing to go, then sold it to a classical music lover who said music had never sounded better in their home. Maybe he's still using it?

I was blown away that a 1965 vintage integrated could sound so good ...

 

I've seen homebrew gear like ham transmitters allegedly built with guns that looked good but never seen it done in person. I never could.

Any hamfest will yield a real soldering station for ten to twenty bucks like a Weller WTCPT, a hakko or similar. So it doesn't make much sense to fool with antebellum if not antediluvian methods.

There is no shortage of dead electronics one can practice on all day long floating around. It does help to have someone to watch and inspect. Many engineers and techs aren't very good; try to find an assembler or rework operator. Building simple projects out of old magazines or "Boy's Book of Electronics" (yeah, I know, it was the times....) books is good too. Everyone needs simple stuff like cable breakouts, testers, maybe a SCR dimmer for a light, et al, right?

 

I should add that I had the SCA-35 for like 10 years or something - made some changes, listened for a few years, made some more changes ... not like I modded and sold off in a few months! It was the centerpiece of my system (with my Yamaha A-700 integrated amp relegated to passive sub driving duty) until I got an Audio Analogue Puccini SE and my present Titus speakers (and a powered sub). Great little amp but runs hotter than the dickens.

 

Exactly why is that?

 

Most of it was average at best. Do try to keep up...
-Bill

 

That is not an answer

 

And according to whom?

 

I would have given the nod to the fm3. I still use one in mono (due to hd radio self noise), and have another sitting here waiting to get a rebuild. Just awesome sound quality for the money. Totally useless in places that get more than three radio stations, of course, but still awesome for those of us who live out in the sticks.

The PAS was a pretty decent performer, and a restored one can still make a pretty good entry level preamp.

 

What's a radio station?...
-Bill

 

People who've listened to anything else in the last forty years?

Anyone who's ever used the phrase "tube sound" as a complaint?

Face it: they weren't all that hot. I can't think of a single product they made where you could describe the power supply as being better than "adequate," for one thing. The St70 and St35 still make a good baseline standard for tube amp quality -- if you can't do better, stay home -- in the same way that the NAD 3020 still makes a good baseline standard for transistor amp quality. They were budget amps that did pretty well. None were at the top of the heap in their heyday, and their heyday has long since passed. Even in modern kit form, a stock st70 isn't all that competitive against other kits, much less some of the less price-sensitive engineering in some costlier amps.

I'm not sure what's up with your Team Dynaco problem, but the designs were built to meet a (low) price point and simple enough for untrained builders. Arguing that they're better than mediocre by modern standards is either a weird affectation or a sign of some severe self deception.