Early SS amps - do they sound tubey?
- Thread starter David
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FWIW, I don't think the early autoformer-coupled Mac amplifiers sound very tubelike, or very good. I say this as the owner of an MC-2100 and having heard numerous MC-2100, 2105 and 250 amplifiers "in the field".fiddlefye;n35171 said:
I really think that transistors were adopted, lemming-like, by the struggling American manufacturers (most of whom succumbed within a few years of the dawn of the 1960s, being acquired by larger companies) and I doubt that most of them were as thoughtful as we're giving them credit for being from our 21st Century perspective. I think the wolf was really at the door in the early 1960s for Fisher, Scott, Marantz (yes, even Heathkit!) -- although, in fairness, maybe (???) not so much in Mac's case.
As an aside, I think the cycle I posit above repeated itself in the early 1970s with "quad"... but that's another story, for another time ;- )
Having gleefully besmirched the early soiled state hardware :- ) I will say that I have an unrestored HH Scott LK-60B (kit version of the 260) capacitor-coupled ss integrated amplifier here -- and it sounds quite good, to me.
049 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr(yes, even with "real" speakers as opposed to teeny-weeny ones, too!)
I have gotta have it.....
I’ve found the HH Scott 299T ( T for transistor ) does have a tubey sound, actually quite good in fact. I believe it’s the first non-tubed amp they made and it came out pretty good!
same here! and a similar KA-4002
I think the first really good sounding SS gear was the 2nd generation Dynaco--the PAT-5 preamp and ST-400 amplifier. I had them and they sounded significantly better than the 1st generation SS Dynaco I owned. And 1st generation Dynaco SS sounded better than the Japanese SS receivers I heard all the time and 2nd generation was better than American SS of the time; Mac, Crown, Phase Linear and such. I heard Quad SS at Victors and it sounded very good but then that was always with Quad speakers. Anyway, after 2nd generation Dyna all kinds of good SS came along; GAS was great sounding gear, Ampzilla.
That's what I think, anyway.
That's what I think, anyway.
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Techu Shi
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I've owned several of the QUAD current dumping amplifiers (405 and 606) and have been very impressed. Not quite 'tubey' but Ive often considered that if I couldnt have tubes the 606 might do.
I just picked up a Yamaha B-1which was billed as "SET-like". It has yet to live up to that but im just starting to pair it with speakers.
I'd agree with Snade. Scott and Sherwood utilized silicon outputs right from the start, unlike Fisher, Heath, and many others, and I find those former two to sound very good in comparison, right up to the end of their US manufacture around '72/73 and the Japanese ascendance which imo was primarily due to marketing and cost, not any great technical superiority. I've had 5 or 6 US-made Scotts of the '68-72 era and all were uniformly quite excellent performing and sounding receivers, something I cannot say about post-tube Fishers. Unlike the first ss Fishers however, my end-of-tube era Fisher 400 (7868 tube), was/is a wonderful piece that is now residing with our daughter. I recall that in the big catalogs Allied and others were almost giving away the last of them. Little did the early-adopters of Fisher's SS stuff realize that they were paying considerably extra for inferiority!
I had the TRIO version of this. Nice compact package with lots of facilities. Two phono inputs, pre out/ power in , tape monitor loop, loudness.
Bit of a regret about selling it.
Regards,
The grand ole days of Allied....wish they were still on the scene 
I use my KA-2002 for my headphone amp and it works quite nicely.
Here's a Scott 377 (1972, they moved the meter R to L in production), still US-made and imo every bit as excellent as any Marantz (Japan-made), Pioneer, Sansui, (and I've had all of those) or other mid-power 1970s Japanese receivers. It's tuner section is superb, Scott was always known for tuners, many tube-era Scott tuners were used as FM radio station monitors. My son has a Scott 282c (1970, pic 3) that has been equally excellent. Waaay too much attention is given to super-power late 70s Japanese receivers imo, reflected these days by the truly absurd prices being asked.
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yep I always thought the Sherwood S7100, S7200 sounded sort of like toobs
HHScott (the man) was an amateur musician and allegedly he always insisted in auditioning new products in front of a group of players from the Boston Symphony to get their input on their sound, perhaps this resulted in a musicality that some might attribute to that produced by tube amplifiers as they advanced into the solid state age. Scott never sidetracked into use of Ge xsistors and started with Si designs from the very beginning, with good results imho!.
Snade
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I always liked the look of early Scott solid state receivers.
I saw this one for sale recently on FB marketplace near me - from 1971 and also 18 watts per channel. Does it still sound tubey? Not sure, but probably yes, I would guess.
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Mr. Widget
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I guess I couldn't define a tubey sound, but heck yeah, very cool looking!
That is a nice price, you thinking about it?
