Your Favorite Amplifier

It is mighty pretty.

 

Atma-sphere MA-1 MK II. Great amp. Wish more folks had a chance to hear them.

They also work well heating your home!

 

deHavilland 845 amps, Ultra-Fi Monaco 845 amp

I love my deHavilland Aries, 845 SET mono amps. Solid engineering, great parts, sturdy construction, and the lovely 845 triode tube in full glory, with output transformers worthy of the job.

Somewhat less expensive, and fewer watts, is the Ultra-Fi Monaco, also a 3-stage 845 SE amp. If you don't need more than 8-10 watts, it's a great choice on a single chassis. Optimized ultra-low-impedance power supply gives a surprisingly effortless sound with big dynamics. PLENTY of power on my Tannoy DMT 15s, or Tannoy Monitor Gold 15s in GRF-R or Jensen Imperial cabinets.

I hope in December and January to breadboard another 845 amp to demo with different power supply topologies at the next Audiokarma fest in the spring.

 

Yep - my selection in post 4.

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showpost.php?p=3044320&postcount=4

 

The audio amplifier to die for.

 

Boy, that's NOT the amp for here in Phoenix!

 

I have to second the Halcro amps Hal mentioned. As transparent sounding as I have heard.

 

I have very few regrets in my life, but one was passing on a 64 AC30 with top boost back in the early 90's. I could have had it with the chrome stand for $1500.00 but I deemed it too darn loud for my living room.

OTOH, I do have several Deluxe Reverb Amps, a 65 Black Face, and a 68 Silver Face. They are no AC-30 but are very very nice indeed.

 

Here are mine...

In SS I really like my Musical Fidelity A3cr, and in tubes, I really like my Golden Tube SE40.


Tim

 

I wish I had a pair of vintage Marantz 9's But my Quicksilver's are really nice also.

I had a chance in the early 1970's to purchase a pair of Marantz 9's at a good price. But I bought a Neumann U-48 microphone instead with the money. I used it in my studio for about 9 years from 1973 till 1981, I think I made my investment back and then some with it. But I liked those 9's a lot. Today I listen-to Quicksilver tube power amps, and have no complaints whatsoever. R.E.

 

McIntosh MC-275

 

All detailed in my profile.

 

My 60s Fender.

 

You don't necessarily need a "Guitar Amp" to get great guitar sound.

A lot of old tube PA and cheaper hi fi amps give great guitar sounds when you drive them with a good instrument preamp. My favorite for guitar is the "front end" of a Mesa Boogie, a Mk IIB is the canonical and easy to build one. For bass try the top module of the Ampeg SVT. This is more challenging to homebrew but at one time SLM would sell just the top as a repair subassembly for like $220 dealer net. As long as the input B+ supply is current regulated or just very small they don't explode catastrophically even though they're all on a PCB.

Some solid state amps work great too. In particular I recommend the old Altec models with output transformers and which operated on 24V internally with provision for battery backup.

I don't claim to be much of a guitar player, but I've worked on enough of them. Everything but major acoustic structural work like neck resets, etc. I cut nuts, saddles, do fret dress, etc.

 

I wouldn't cry unless you just wanted it for collector value. Real AC30s run very hot and tend to have a lot of issues. The better of the modern reissues or a well made clone is a far better working proposition. A really original AC30 tends not to be used so much because they are devalued by having to replace stuff, which is what happens with use.

They do sound great though-with some guitars. Not Strats in my opinion. And that's what everyone plays.

 

I've got a Bogen Challenger here, which is a tube PA amp which sounds great for guitar. You really don't need any preamp other than a high impedance mic input on the Bogen, but you do need a good speaker.

Of course even the high impedance mic input is not really high enough for all guitars, so there may be a slight bit of high frequency loss. OTOH you could always use a transformer if that was a problem.

 

Most people just gut the small signal section of old PA amps and rebuild Fender or Marshall circuits in there. You could also add on just one more stage if there's any room in there.

I like the separate pre because you can easily play with different old amps that way. If you're gigging this means a rack set up though.

 

No, not for a Strat, though I do have one. But my 64 Gretsch Tennesseean would have sounded sweet. I've also have quite a few Gibsons including a 345, Les Paul, SG, and Byrdland.

I really thought the AC-30 was way too loud for my needs. I'm not much of a guitar player either. I mainly play along with the stereo or with friends on rare occasion. I would have liked an old AC-15, but like you say, they were somewhat problematic. I have a friend with a reissue AC-15 and it is very nice. But I kind of like having the real deal, like with my Deluxe Reverbs. I also have a 48 Champion 600, 56 Princeton, 58 Champ, 61 Bassman and 64 Princeton, to name a few.

I also had a few Ampeg Portaflex bass amps, a B-12 and a B-15, but I gave them to Dan Schwartz who helped me get a SWR Super Redhead for bass. That's really my only modern amp.

 

Crazy me, my favorite Fenders were always silverface ones. They were point wired and were easy to modify and were fixable no matter what. In my day replacement transformers were high dollar relative to amp value but if you did enough you learned what Stancor or Thordarson parts would work especially for power transformer. You had to play with the bias because the taps were different. DIYers hated them because the pots were at an odd angle but you learned to take them out to solder.

Someone decided the silverface wasn't cool so they started stripping and refinishing the Fender faceplates to black.

Now most production amps are all PCB and as a result they are not fun to work on anymore.

The Vox amps worked best with hollowbody guitars and especially Rickenbackers. The 15 and 30 watt power ratings are misleading-they would put out a lot more. But thermally they were on the edge even when new, and those that were used much are mostly all new inside. There were many different reissues and some were poorly done.

I always had an outsider's view of guitars and guitar amps and a lot of things that people seem to insist on strike me as peculiar. Why people put up with necks attached with wood screws instead of inserts and machine screws is one. The stock switch arrangement on Strats is another-you can't use the neck and bridge pickup together, or all three, or any out of phase. And why did Gibson take so long to hollow out the Les Paul, a grossly overweight and often dead sounding beast? And why does only Rickenbacker use conversion varnish finishes, which are as tough as urethane and don't kill the tone? And since Ampeg went as far as to make the power head of the Portaflex look like a Mc, why didn't they use the Mc power circuit-oh yes, patents, but the basic ones were expired by the late 60s, and there was plenty of prior art to challenge many of them (cf. Lockhart). Mc might have licensed them and that would have been a good deal for both companies.

 

I have two favorites from the opposite ends of the food chain at the moment:

Altmann BYOB, car battery driven, 20W @ 4 ohm. On a spruce board, no chassis at all. Very fluid and lively, smooth and dynamic. Affordable.


The other end:
MC2 Audio, MC1250, 1250W @ 4 ohm, Class AB, bipolar. For studio and PA use. If you can tolerate some fan noise, one of the best deals in the audio industry. No SS or tube sound. Pure magic. Like the best of the FM Acoustics amps. Amazing really lively dynamics. Very affordable.

 

Down at the more budget end of the market, serious consideration would have to go to the Marantz 6010 KI Signature which is a relatively minimalist affair (okay, no tone controls) but with a peach of a sound that drives my Linn Mimik (roughly twice the price) with no little aplomb.

Amps I'd like to be in touching distance of include Unison Research's Primo (latest incarnation the Secundo) or one of the Eastern Electric valve amps which are getting rave reviews in some of the UK hifi mags whilst not biting the head off your bank account.....!

 

budget amplifier - refurbed Dynaco Mark IIIs

newer? ARC D-250

 

Ah well, if you're going that far back, add Quad's 33/303 pre and power combination to that end of things!

 

So, is this an integrated amp?

With all those wpc @ 4, I take it it would work phenomenally well with Magneplanars.

I couldn't discern a way of finding US dealers.