£300/350 valve amp for 70s record player

Joel232

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Hey guys,

Appologies if this has been asked, couldn't see it.

I've just purchased a record player from the 70s. Wanted a bit more warmth than a regular hi-fi, plus it's more fun and looks better! :)

I'm going to route it through a valve amp but I'm not very clued up in budget vale amps. I've only got £300/350. What would you recommend?

im going for warmth as opposed to clarity.

Thanks guys :)
 

CnoEvil

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Hi Joel and welcome.

There are two comments I would make:

- Valve amps (new) around that money are generally not very good....The Pure Sound A10 is a good amp, but is double your budget and needs a phono stage.

- You will need "Valve Friendly" speakers, that have high Sensitivity and Impedance that doesn't drop through the floor.

What Turntable did you get and what are your current speakers?
 

James7

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Yes, valve amps for that price are few and far between I am afraid. You may need to look at the second hand market with the risk and care that requires. Icon Audio and Ming Da are two companies that both produce good quality amps at the £1000 mark and a little under, albeit fairly low powered, but their entry level amps are well above your budget, and have no built in phono stage.

An alternative if you cannot stretch that far is to look for a classic transistor based design. Some of the late 70s / early 80s stuff from Japanese firms like Kenwood, Sansui and Technics are worth investigating - they have the warmth you are looking for and are lots of fun. My early 1999s Aura Evolution 100 amp is warm and equipped with a good MM phono stage - it's a design that I know from experience to be long living and examples can be found regularly online for well under your budget.
 

Infiniteloop

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CnoEvil said:
Hi Joel and welcome.

There are two comments I would make:

- Valve amps (new) around that money are generally not very good....The Pure Sound A10 is a good amp, but is double your budget and needs a phono stage.

- You will need "Valve Friendly" speakers, that have high Sensitivity and Impedance that doesn't drop through the floor.

What Turntable did you get and what are your current speakers?

+1
 

drummerman

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Infiniteloop said:
CnoEvil said:
Hi Joel and welcome.

There are two comments I would make:

- Valve amps (new) around that money are generally not very good....The Pure Sound A10 is a good amp, but is double your budget and needs a phono stage.

- You will need "Valve Friendly" speakers, that have high Sensitivity and Impedance that doesn't drop through the floor.

What Turntable did you get and what are your current speakers?

+1

Agree with everything that's been said. A valve amplifiers quality is usually (but not exclusively) in the transformers and their associated weight. I had an amp that was only rated at some 25w/ch and even that was a heavy lump.

If you don't need high volume (and have reasonably sensitive speakers) you could try something like Hifiman's Headphone amplifier, the EF-100, which also has speaker binding posts. It gives something like 3 or 4 watts.

Fatman also make hybrid valve/transistor amplifiers around your budget. They put a little more watts out but are obviously not pure valve.
 

Rethep

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You could try to find an 'Audio Innovations 500', secondhand, that would be around 500 euro's! Really nice quality, if you can find them.

Also you could build one yourself from a kit. Just Google around a little. The built in phono-pre-amp you need makes it a little harder.
 

Joel232

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Thanks for all the replies. Really interesting stuff.

Im really into my audio, I'm actually a professional sound engineer and producer but this technical side of things is pretty new to me. Ask me to create a super stacked saw and I'm your man ;)

So I bought a Fidelity HF45.. As I'm sure you know they have a built in amp. I'm going to try and work out a way I can route the signal so I can have it out of two monitors but also out of the Fidelity (at the same time). I'm using my old studio monitors which aren't great.. Alesis MK2. They are active however. Would this stop me being able to use a valve amp with them? If so I can change those.

It's going to be a fun project! :)
 
Joel232 said:
Thanks for all the replies. Really interesting stuff.

Im really into my audio, I'm actually a professional sound engineer and producer but this technical side of things is pretty new to me. Ask me to create a super stacked saw and I'm your man ;)

So I bought a Fidelity HF45.. As I'm sure you know they have a built in amp. I'm going to try and work out a way I can route the signal so I can have it out of two monitors but also out of the Fidelity (at the same time). I'm using my old studio monitors which aren't great.. Alesis MK2. They are active however. Would this stop me being able to use a valve amp with them? If so I can change those.

It's going to be a fun project! :)

Surely if those speakers are active, ie they have an inbuilt amplifier, then you'd only need a valve preamp.
 

Petherick

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Hi Joel232

I think I'm right in saying that the amplifier in the player is mono only. Also I suspect that the pick-up cartridge is either mono (probable) or wired for mono (possible). It will probably also be a crystal (piezo) pick-up. If you only want mono output, then simply take the signal from the pick-up and send it to an single-channel amplifier and on to a single speaker. If you want a stereo output, you will probably need to fit a new cartridge.

I hate to sound negative, but apart from using all this as a project, I'm not sure the results will be worth the effort.
 

NS496

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James7 said:
My early 1999s Aura Evolution 100 amp is warm and equipped with a good MM phono stage - it's a design that I know from experience to be long living and examples can be found regularly online for well under your budget.

Yes, the famous Aura 100 Evo II amp...

Good, in-working order ones are getting scarce though. But gives a 'warmer' presentation - I accept the 'all amps sound the same except when they're clipping' argument - except this amp really does sound somewhat different - inexplicably... :)
 

Joel232

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Ah great. One to look out for. I'm always sceptical of getting second hand tubes though.. Still, the old Neuman u87s I use are amazing!

I'm going to run it out of the output into a splitter, then valve amp then the monitors :)

Does anyone know what outputs the HF45 have? It should arrive tomorrow!
 

richie60

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James7 said:
My early 1999s Aura Evolution 100 amp is warm and equipped with a good MM phono stage - it's a design that I know from experience to be long living and examples can be found regularly online for well under your budget.

One of the worst things I ever did was sell this amp. I loved the sound it made with a lot of different speakers I had over the years. It does have an excellent phono stage.

Loved the looks too.
 

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