Your feelings on vintage audio.

Hi all,

Been a while! Crazy at work; you all know.

Got my 299 back recently! Hadn't been able to hook it up so it was sitting atop a file cabinet in my office. I was on the computer and my daughter was there talking to me when I noticed she had her hand in the amp. She was curiously touching things.

About a week later I was thinking I have the time so lets hook it up. I remembered my daughter and thought "I hope she didn't mess with the bias". When I saw her and asked she said yeah she had played with it.

Well I thought I will take it back to the tech when my 299b is ready and have it re-biased. Gotta learn how to do it anyway. It was then I noticed one of the weaker tubes was white on top. I remembered reading that indicated the vacuum was compromised. I went to remove the tube and as it came out it was cracked at the base! DOH!

Can't get mad at my girl, I love her curiosity. Part of the reason I began this trek is to introduce her to good sounding music, good looking gear. Other than her iPod and portable CD player.(Not bashing iPods!)(or portable CD players!)

She has already developed a preference for the higher fidelity offered by our modest stereo. Insists on using it during good movies, watched Cars with her this afternoon! What great fun! She loves to listen to her favorite FM and CDs on the stereo.

I love she is discovering this! I suppose a little delay in set-up is acceptable.

So I now have 3 original H.H.Scott Amperex 7189s. One weak and 2 strong. The 2 weaker ones were on one channel and I was told they would need replacing soon. But as the tech said to me "I like to let fine horses like that run 'til they die". Thought that was kind of colorful!

Currently looking for replacements and will return when it is up and running!

Best,

Dave

Still the cleanest midrange speaker I have heard a Quad 57.

You can replace the 7189s with a fresh quad of the excellent, Russian, 6P14P-EV tubes, which can be ordered from the Baltic countries via e-bay for about $25.00 per set, or from Jim McShane in the US, who will burn in and match them for about $50.00 per set. They are, in many ways, superior to the GE 7189s. If you order direct, the 6P14P is a standared EL84 and will be stressed in the 299, but the 6P14P-EV is a 7189 equivilent rated at over 5000 hours service life.

Hi Viridian,

Appreciate your and everyones responses.

I had done as you suggested, bought a set of tubes from Jim.

Have yet to install them. And when done I'm sure biasing will need to be done. I've never done that, need to learn. Figure when I pick up my 299B from Mike in Austin I'll have him teach me.

When this is accomplished I'll retrun with impressions.

Wish I was able to hear it with the Amperex since I've read so much good stuff about their sound.

Oh well.

Regards,

Dave

I heard that some of the vintage amplifiers used metals in their transformer wiring that is not available anymore. Is this true? Examples would be Marantz and maybe Mcintosh. I would have to believe if true that it would significantly influence the sound.