Play Akai Thru Eico HF-81 Tube Amp

Hey I didn't mean to rag, but this little ol' amp means alot to
me! I know there's better and costly amps out there. For what it's
But again, I'm trying to put together the "original family owned
system" that I fondly remember from the early days of HIFI/Stereo.
Gotta commend your work in putting this together. Good for
you, enjoy it heartily.
BTW....anyone remember when Stereo LPs cost a dollar more than Mono
copies back in the 60s? Also they were less available in some stores,
until they took over Mono in the later 60s. Wow! I guess I'm dating
myself!
Yessir. All of my first LP purchases (beginning in 1965,
before that only 45s) were monaural, though I do not recall the price
differential being a whole dollar. I am recalling $2.73 for mono and $3.27
for stereo (though that may be engine cubic inches I am recalling). When you
were making $1.20 an hour working part time mono was just fine. I think
Rubber Soul was my first stereo purchase.

On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:32:21 -0500, 8 tracker from hell
wrote:

any way you look at it, there is nothing made today that can beat the tube
audio equipment that was made in the 50s & sixties, i don't care what
desertbob says. snip

Remember, this was the guy who thought Ron Paul was the "second
coming."

Ask him about his tin foil hat some time.

On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:19:51 -0800 (PST), still_trackin
wrote:

Wow! Real nice collection of vintage gear! A buddy of mine has the
Dynaco ST-70 amp powering a pair of Klipsch La Scalas snip

La Scalas are VERY efficient, great with tube gear, since the power
output of any tube system will be anemic. They're almost as efficient
as the K-horn, somewhere around 103 dB/W/m. Problem with the La Scala
is that the bottom octave of bass is missing vis à vis a proper corner
loaded K-horn, but with pop music, it just doesn't matter, since
nothing in that material ever really gets down that low.

BTW....those 6550 power tubes really pack a punch. There's 4 per
side in my VT100MKII ARC power amp along with the output tubes (4 per
side) Alot of heat coming off those babies, but the sound along with
the SP-11MKII preamp is really sweet! Don't think I'll be upgrading
that system in the near future, but who knows....when you get the
urge.... snip

Have you priced NOS Tung-Sols lately? YOIKES! I still have about 15
in stock; last time I sold a matched pair, they went for $350. The
Russian and Chinese stuff just doesn't stack up...not enough thorium
in the plates. Those Tung-Sols from the '50s, especially the MIL-spec
variety, really did do the job. Lots of harmonic distortion, though,
necessitating a very "loud" negative feedback loop. The 7591As were
better in that regard, and handled as much power, but had heat
dissipation problems. The 7591 amps were short lived, as solid state
started taking over right about the time they were introduced.
Right now I'm playing around quite abit with the little Eico and
been having musical flashbacks...lol...
Like they say...it's all about the music! Enjoy!

On Feb 21, 10:34*pm, "William W Western"
wrote:
* *Hey I didn't mean to rag, but this little ol' amp means alot to

me! I know there's better and costly amps out there. For what it's
* * But again, I'm trying to put together the "original family owned
system" that I fondly remember from the early days of HIFI/Stereo.
* * * * * * * * *Gotta commend your work in putting this together. Good for
you, enjoy it heartily. * BTW....anyone remember when Stereo LPs cost a dollar more than Mono

copies back in the 60s? Also they were less available in some stores,
until they took over Mono in the later 60s. Wow! I guess I'm dating
myself!
* * * * * * * * *Yessir. All of my first LP purchases (beginning in 1965,
before that only 45s) were monaural, though I do not recall the price
differential being a whole dollar. I am recalling $2.73 for mono and $3.27
for stereo (though that may be engine cubic inches I am recalling). When you
were making $1.20 an hour working part time mono was just fine. I think
Rubber Soul was my first stereo purchase.

Yeah Stereo versions were pretty uncommon in the pre-67 LP era. I
remember Sears having like 1 Stereo to 5 Mono copies of the early pre
Sgt. Pepper Beatles albums. Other less popular artists were only
stocked in Mono period.
Actually some of those early Stereo versions were not that great
to begin with, since they were released in electronically rechanneled
Stereo. It wasn't until the early 70s when I started to buy the
English imports that I finally heard those great records in true
Stereo.
BTW....remember the pre-shrink wrap days, when record shops would
have the LP covers in the bins seperate from the actual disc, which
they stored behind the counter? No doubt done for security reasons.
The covers usually had a thick clear plastic protector sleeve over
them, and you would bring it up to the clerk who would match it up
with the disc. I really miss those old mom and pop record shops, let
alone the "head shop" types!
Seems like by 67' Stereo had become mainstream....hey it only took
10 years...lol...and the emergence of alot of dedicated HIFI-Stereo
stores came about. The listening/buying experience isn't the same at
big box electronic stores where the majority of consumers gravitate to
these days to buy the latest game console or hand held device. It's a
shame quality is overlooked in favor of conveinance....hopefully the
audiophile is not a dieing breed!

Seems like by 67' Stereo had become mainstream....hey it only took
10 years...lol...and the emergence of alot of dedicated HIFI-Stereo
stores came about.
Sgt Pepper hooked a lot of us onto stereo. He ordered us to do
it. Headphones as well.

On Feb 22, 8:28*am, "William W Western"
wrote:
* Seems like by 67' Stereo had become mainstream....hey it only took
10 years...lol...and the emergence of alot of dedicated HIFI-Stereo
stores came about.
* * * * * * * Sgt Pepper hooked a lot of us onto stereo. He ordered us to do
it. Headphones as well.

Yeah, I was gonna bring that up! Pepper being such a revolutionary
album for the time, literally ushered in the "mainstream" Stereo
listening experience, especially with headphones! Many great albums
followed and the rest as they say is history. I new a guy who had the
Mono copy, which purists claim is the only way to experience it, but
at the time it already seemed dated in comparison.
We take alot of the influences that The Beatles/ British Invasion
brought about to music and the culture for granted. The interest and
purchasing of first time Stereo gear, brought on by the advancements
in such recordings, sparked an interest in younger people who at the
time were not known as Stereophile gear purchasers. Older guys into
Classical and Jazz were the main supporters, after Pepper that all
changed forever! Great thread BTW!

On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 06:03:24 -0800 (PST), still_trackin
wrote:

Seems like by 67' Stereo had become mainstream.... snip

in Southern California, stereo was pretty much available for any title
along with a few mono copies pretty much everywhere. I think I bought
my last mono release in '64.

hey it only took
10 years...lol...and the emergence of alot of dedicated HIFI-Stereo
stores came about. The listening/buying experience isn't the same at
big box electronic stores where the majority of consumers gravitate to
these days to buy the latest game console or hand held device. It's a
shame quality is overlooked in favor of conveinance....hopefully the
audiophile is not a dieing breed! snip

Oh, "hi-fi" is already dead. The current crop of Gen Yers and Gen
Zers are clueless as to fidelity, not to mention the ghetto crowd, who
thing "thump and tizz" is "good sounds." To the kids these days, a
128 kb/s mp3 is "good" quality, when to me, they sound perfectly
disgusting. Even the 320s are compromised, even with a good encoder,
but the kids don't seem to understand nor do they care. Mp3 is the 8
track of digital audio, that's for sure.

As for the "audiophile," the big marketing thrust now is to market
"multimedia." What used to pass for the "audiophile" market is now
polluted with senseless tube designs of little real worth and super
expensive, useless cables that cost a fortune and no nothing more than
your average copper conductors. There's precious left of the true era
of high fidelity, the '70s and '80s, when such great products as the
MicroAcoustics phono cartridge and Dave Hafler's MOSFET power amps
were the best for the money in the US. I remember the "audio salon"
stores of the '50s and '60s...that was a heady time for hi-fi nuts,
for sure!

People don't regard audio reproduction with any regard for quality
anymore. True, all the analog foibles of tape hiss, vinyl surface
noise and the usual distortion parameters don't even factor into
digital sound production and recording, but several other "cost
effective" problems with digital have eaten away it the final signal's
purity. Also dead is radio in any form...a complete wasteland, except
for the rare high powered university station, and even they've been
commercialized to the point of irrelevance, thanks mostly to the Bush
Administration's moves to "commercialize" NPR and PBS. Public radio
with commercials...who woulda thunk it??

still_trackin wrote:

Wow! Real nice collection of vintage gear!

i have more equipment just sitting, waiting for a place to be set up.
i have two vintage Bell systems. one is a stereo amp only (3030), the other
is a stereo amp with built in am/fm mono tuners with separate dials. (this
was designed for the early fm stereo broadcast when they used AM for one
channel & FM for the other channel. they both are 6V6 powered stereo
amplifiers.
i also have a very nice Stromberg-Carlson stereo amp that uses 6BQ5 outputs
in push-pull configuration. the amp is rated @ 12 watts RMS per channel &
can peak around 20 watts per channel. this amp is very conservative on
output tubes. they have a long life on this particular amp. this amp is
very musical & almost compares to the ST-70s as far as the sound quality
goes.
i have quite a few more, but i will list them some other time.
those were just the vintage stereo gear, i have much more vintage mono Hi Fi
equipment as well as huge collection of vintage mono reel to reel tape
recorders ranging from the late 40s to the early sixties.

A buddy of mine has the
Dynaco ST-70 amp powering a pair of Klipsch La Scalas with a BAT tube
output based CD player. A great sounding system!

yes, that is a great system. imagine if he had TWO ST-70 amps, that system
would also kick ass as far as loudness goes.

I once owned 4 large Advents in a quad system and drove them with
a Sansui QRX-6500 receiver. Played my Akai CD-80D-SS deck thru it and
I was in quad heaven! I sold the speakers and receiver about 5 years
ago when I got out of quad

you really should have kept them Advents. those would make any low power
tube amp sing. those were great speakers.
were they the Klous designed speakers?
--
i have an 8 track mind

My other computer is your XP box.