the lovely almarro

[Hanoimé]

HALP!

fell in love with the sound of the almarro tube amp,
been testing it for the weekend and it's really honey drippingly lovely, such depth, space, dimension. everything sound different than before, it's a revelation. our old amp sounds just stuffy now, though it's an ok sonneteer cambio.

but the almarro is quite pricey and makes me wonder if it's worth it though... i want it but don't.

any tube amp opinions, experiences, plusses and minuses?

[stak_etop]

Diy!

I have thought of investigating deeper into tube amps & pre's myself too.
Here are a few good ones i've discovered:

Stereo Tube Amplifier with Pre:
http://www.aaroncake.net/circuits/tubeamp.asp

Revenge by Mauri Pännäri from Hifi Magazine (in finnish):
http://file.jaatiedostosi.com/R3Y79s/

10W tube amp (you need to register to access attachments):
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showt...threadid=72536

Matched tubes can be acquired from ebay for a reasonably low price. For other hard-to-get parts (transformers, tube sockets etc) I recommend http://www.uraltone.com/

[love_tempo]

I had an old leak stereo 20. it was lovely, sounded great with rock and roll, blues, country etc... but it was more often in repair than in use.

new might be better than old in this case unless you can do minor repairs yerself.