Sleeper Vintage Tube Gear?


Hello All,

I'm pretty good with a soldering iron, used to be a tech, and have built a few guitar amps from scratch as well as repaired/modded others soooooo…….

Any recommendations of vintage sleeper tube amps or preamps (home audio) that I can look for to repair, upgrade, modify that would be relatively inexpensive, say $200 each ?

Thanks
gorquin
I think a vintage tube or SS preamp in the signal chain will impose too much of its sound on the recordings. I would bypass the preamp and go directly into a CD recorder. Its a much cleaner solution, and if you want to do any type of processing, it will be much easier to do it working from a CD.
I do, you must realize that the PAS does not have cathode followers so it will only work well into an amp with high input impedance.

It will sound very differerent than the C1. But better, that's a subjective judgement that you must make for yourself.
In another post I mention wanting to rip my LP's to digital because some were never offered on CD.

I have a Kenwood C1 preamp that I'm thinking of doing some upgrade mods to. I love the sound of tube gear for guitar work and am wondering if something like a Dynaco PAS tube preamp would sound better than the upgraded Kenwood C1 if I modded the PAS' phono section?

Anyone have any experience with this?
"07-19-15: Ebm
1 thread is enough?"

Not if you want a stereo thread.

Heath Kit's sound pretty good and are not that expensive. A lot of people overlook them.
If you can find Dynaco tube gear and repair and improve cosmetics at a reasonable price there are always buyers for this brand. Look at Ebay for same, prices vary according to condition.

A more obscure option is older FM tuners. There are still fans for the top rated models.

When I say top rated, visit FM Tuner Info which is run by one of my audio group members. Typically Kenwood and Sansui models move pretty well, some fetch as much as a thousand dollars.

http://www.fmtunerinfo.com/
Thanks Rodge827. What I guess also I'm looking for are suggestion of "what" to turn it into once I purchase and amp, preamp, or integrated amp.
On the Bay there are a lot of different vintage amps you can acquire for this purpose. Many of them are amp "pulls" form old tube console's like Magnavox, Fisher, Eico, Sears, Silvertone, Stromburgh Carelson, Sherwood...

Search "vintage tube amp" on EBay and you will find a plethora of such equipment.

Stromberg-Carlson ASR433, Magnavox SE console amps. It's usually easy to purchase a pair of mono integrated amps if you buy them separately. Heath made some nice ones with 6L6s.