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paramour repair and upgrade

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matt99eo:
Hi, 

I too have a paramour amplifier that is outputting at a much lower volume than the other.  I found the post below and will begin checking my values as soon as I can find or get a replacement manual.

As I repair this amp I would also like to upgrade the caps and transformers.  I found the old document for updgrading the paramour but am wondering where to find the ICW clarity caps and if the upgrade transformers/chokes that magnequest has listed here for the paramour are correct.  Can someone confirm? http://magnequest.com/products.htm

Thanks.

Matt

Len:
If it's an original Paramour (Y2K), then the first iron upgrade was different from the paramour upgrade kit that you see. But PJ, Doc and other knowledgeables can definitely point you in the right direction.

As for the clarity caps, I think Doc had gotten a great deal on them and passed the savings onto us. If you are doing it from scratch, I would go with auricaps instead.

Paul Joppa:
Stupid forum ate my post again!

The current MQ iron upgrade fits the old Paramour just fine, in fact better than the old upgrade. Use a larger parafeed cap, around 10uF. Just be careful to insulate the terminals on the output transformer which is mounted topside on a Paramour I.

matt99eo:
Paul,

Do you have a copy of the paramour 1 manual?  I take measurements and figure why one of my amps is putting out at such low volume.

Also,  i love my paramours but am juggling between upgrading them with nice iron, caps, etc. or building up a pair of paramounts.  Could you advise me on the pros /cons to each scenario??

W.R.T the magnequest iron,  could you describe the sonic differences between nickel striped and straight up nickel transformers?

Thanks for your time and what up from Hood River!

Paul Joppa:
You'll have to ask Eileen for a manual copy. But meanwhile, just measure the DC voltage from each tube socket pin to ground (skip the heater pins since both tubes are glowing).  This will tell us most of what is needed to start the diagnosis.

Of course the Paramount is a better amp - we've learned a lot over the last decade. The layout is cleaner and more solid mechanically, the shunt-regulated driver sounds a good deal better, the 300B provides more than twice the power, the DC heaters reduce the hum 20dB, the Schottky rectifiers eliminate reverse-recovery buzz, etc. The stock Paramount iron is not Magnequest, but it is much closer to MQ than to the original Paramour stock iron, especially in terms of frequency extension and distortion.

That said, the biggest sonic compromise in my opinion between a stock Paramount and an upgraded Paramour I is hum from the AC filament power in the Paramour. That is usually only a problem with very high efficiency speakers.

I should mention that we are nearly ready to build the production prototype of the Stereomour, a stereo Paramour integrated amp with new iron, similar in quality to the Paramount iron. Just to complicate the choices...  :^)

I have not done careful listening to the pinstriped transformers, so I don't feel I can comment usefully. The pinstripes are in between nickel and M6, just as you would expect. I like the all-nickel cores better than M6 because they seem smoother, more liquid and transparent. A number of careful listeners prefer M6 because it has a bit more "grunt" - impact on transients especially. I think rock fans are more likely to prefer M6, classical fans nickel, jazz fans on the fence depending on exactly what kind of jazz floats their boat.

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