Hmm. Scott 290 vintage or Quicksilver M80 tube amp?

Hmmm...

So, my friend apparently isn't keen on selling me the Scott 290. I suppose he just learned of the value of his amp (doubtful - he had two and already sold one) or he just hasn't the time to fix the amp. Apparently, he has too many projects and too little time to completely rebuild the 290.

He offered me another amp, though: the M80 Mono Amplifier by Quicksilver (a pair of monoblocks). I haven't been able to find much info on them, except that it can use KT-88 or KT-90 tubes, and they are 80 watts each. Their retail price was $3,000 when new.

He has offered them to me for the same price he offered the Scott, plus an old HT receiver I no longer use (he's changing all the tubes and checking the Quicksilver out). Is this a good deal? I've never heard anything about Quicksilver...

Thanks for your help!

 

Don't know about the M80's but a few of the guys on the Klipsch forum have owned M60's and quite liked them. If you post the question over there I am sure you may get a response from some of the people who have actually owned one. A good amp for the money, but do you really need 80W. Your speakers must not be very efficient.

This was one person's quick comment about the M60:

Well, I liked them enough to buy them twice. My son has them now, and we both think they sound great. No negatives -- great EL-34 sound.

 

A few months ago I had the Quicksilver KT-88 mono's here for a week to audition. I was amazed with the way they sounded tonally in my system. Sounded very natural and detailed to me and would have made me very happy except that I couldn't get the darn things to image, so I took them back and kept looking. If they would have imaged better they would have been "my" amps for a long time to come because of how impressed I was on how they controlled my speakers.

There may have been something wrong with the units I had, or they may have been improved by the M series.

I vote that, if you can, try them out. If they don't work out then keep looking.

 

Thanks for your opinions! I'll take a listen to the amp this Saturday, and I'll be sure to check out the imaging issue.

As for why would I want 80 watts per channel... no idea I'll be pairing the amp with a pair of old, very efficient JBL tower speakers (huge, BTW), and I guess the combination will make for a terrific, high impact sound. At least, I hope so...