Bottlehead Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Grainger49 on May 13, 2010, 10:58:07 AM
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It occurred to me how I found Bottlehead just this morning. When Art Dudley sold Listener to a big distributor they contacted me and I subscribed. I started reading Harvey "Gizmo" Rosenberg's column, may he rest in peace. He suggested something other than the "normal" tube amplifiers, was a huge supporter of VSAC and named Bottlehead as one of the best values in all of audio.
I came, I read, I bought.
How about the rest of you?
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Audioasylum.
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Searching for turntable kits. How was it called? Bix? Never purchased one but have purchase everything else (sometimes several ea) from the BH -and TP- catalog.
And I open the BH forum many times a day too!
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searched the internet (google) for tube-based hi-fi amplifiers and the rest is history.
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I read the review of the original SEX Amp in Glass Audio way back when. This led to a VALVE subscription and eventually to this forum (didn't even own a PC at the time!).
That first review of that early product indicated to me that these guys were primarily interested in the circuits they designed, and as an older hand at this, I related to that more than anything. Also, I liked the idea of a company selling kits with a number of NOS/salvaged parts where available. Recycling used to be a big deal in the electronics hobby! Even in school, we often challenged each other to "make" something out of the odds 'n' ends we found lying around in the lab. Hell, Heathkit got its start designing products out of military surplus, after all!
Finally, this is one of the better sites for people willing to talk about their experimenting. The application of SS items where appropriate to make vacuum tube circuits perform at higher levels than the original designers were able to achieve is ground-breaking stuff that I only really see a couple of places.
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It was back in about 2001 I believe and I was surfing the net for a new pre-amp and just happened to stumble upon a site with a super cheap tube pre-amp kit in a wood box called a Foreplay. Tubes?!?!? Kit?!?! I had always thought vacuum tubes had gone the way of the dinosaurs and stereo kits vanished when Heathkit went away!! One thing led to another and now I have trouble counting the number of Bottlehead kits I have assembled! Best stumble upon a website I have ever made!
Dave
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I only found out about Bottlehead in late '08. Being in my thirties, tube electronics were something I saw only when I was very young (i.e., early 80's), and only in older relatives' homes. I've been into audio and electronics since I was a kid, and always wanted to build my own gear. My early memories of warm sounds emanating from from old tube amp/box speaker combos like my uncle's Dynaco led me to want to explore that route as opposed to SS. Plus, tubes are way cooler to look at! Some Google-ing and searching of amps in kit form brought me to Bottlehead, and several months later, I had built a new S.E.X. amp. Now, I have BH gear in different parts of the house and have built all the upgrades, like C4S boards and better irons, and am rewarded with great sound and the pride that comes from building one's own gear. It's helped me to rediscover my early love of electronics and kits, and is a fun way to escape the stressful world of DSM-IV diagnoses, standard deviations and pathology I have to deal with as a psychologist.
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I bought a Teac amplifier. It broke within a year. I was unable to get it fixed. This made me mad! I said "I'm gonna make something myself. That way I can repair it when it breaks." I'd heard of kits before, though not Bottlehead. I researched and heard about the Foreplay...
Only problem is nothing has ever broken-so I haven't had to do any repairs. Hope I didn't jinx myself.
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can't remember ... getting old ... having fun though.
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Shortly after joining the Air Force I got a second job at a Hi-Fi shop to make ends meet. I quickly got used to listening to gear like McIntosh and Krell amps pumping through B&W and Wilson speakers. Since there was no way on my meager salary to afford such things at the time, I decided that if I couldn't buy it I would learn how to make it.
Doc's outstanding manuals relieved me of the need to really learn anything other than how to solder well. But I get the same satisfaction of building it myself and it sounds better than the stuff I couldn't afford to buy back then.
And now that I can afford to buy it I wouldn't dream of it. The gear I have built sounds way better and the community and customer support that is the Bottlehead experience could never even be approached by "hi-fi" companies.
So thanks for a great adventure and what a long strange trip its been.
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I got here through Harvey "Gizmo" Rosenberg too. I'd been searching the net for info on repairing tube radios and stumbled on his website. His descriptions of gear that would make you want to "dance naked in front of the turntable" really appealed to me. I grew up listening to tube radios and tube console stereos (I'm 50). I'd never soldered anything before but after reading the Bottlehead forum for a little while I figured I'd give it a shot. Bought the $99 Foreplay kit, soldered it up over two nights and when I fired it up the smoke stayed in and it made beautiful music! I added Paramours when they first came out. Love 'em. Still read the forum just about every day.
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After 15 years of living with Nak TA-3A SS amp and Klipsch Heresy, I was never satisfied with the sound...particularly after long and loud listening sessions. Remembering the days of drooling over the Heathkit catalog, I began searching the net for something better. Reading Gizmo lead me toward SET. Bottlehead was one of the few I narrowed down to, but what sold me was this forum.
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Three votes for Gizmo. I'm sure we all miss him and his insane writings.
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I attend an audio meet in Houston on 10/26/2002 and was introducted to Bottlehead and tubes. I had spent a life time with SS and only thought of tubes for my Dad's Fender guitar amp. Well I was in awe of the sound from these low power tube amps and single driver speakers. The journey had begun.
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I don't remember how i found BH, but I was an original subscriber to the Xerox-printed VALVE magazine; and attended the first three VSAC's in Silverdale and the last one in Vancouver WA. There, Doc introduced me to Paul Birkeland, who agreed to take my eight-year collection of tasty MQ bits (and other stuff) to turn them into my "Final Music System". So, while I have not enjoyed the special joy of building my own gear, I do have the pleasure of getting the projects I dreamed about actually built...... and the system sings! My pottery career is in full stride @ 71, so I am glad I concentrated on that, despite the attractions of the fabled blue smoke......... & glad to be in good company here.
Cheers, Hank
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Fun thread, folks, thanks for all the kind words.
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When I was a teen back in the 70's I took a 2 year electronics course. It was far enough back that we learned tube technology as a springboard for learning transistors. Part of that class was a lab where we each built a two tube mono amp consisting of a 12AX7 and a 6V6. I used that amp for years using a cheap cassette player as a source and an open baffle Altec Lancing speaker salvaged from a console HiFi setup that was destined for the landfill. Later a friend of mine used that amp as a practice amplifier for his electric guitar. As a person that likes to stay on the cutting edge I abandoned tube technology in favor of solid state. I also sold all my vinyl records and replaced most of them with CD's. I continued on this path for nearly 20 years and then stumbled on a few DIY headphone amp articles on the WEB. Since I've never been all that impressed with Solid State I decided that I would build a tube based headphone amplifier. In the process of narrowing down which circuit to use and sourcing parts I discovered the Bottlehead SEX amp. I was intrigued by the 6DN7 dissimilar triode design. Having a small and large tube circuit in the same glass envelope seemed really cool! And what was this "parafeed" thing anyway? By then I was hooked. I was a "tube guy" again. I ordered the SEX amp and have been very happy with it ever since. Of course it doesn't stop there. I bought a Seduction/FPIII "package deal" and some Paramour II's to build my main system. And recently I purchaced a Quickie and Crack (I hate that name BTW). Those amps are not built yet but are on the agenda after the spring chores are done. I'll build the quickie first to swap into the main system as a backup while I "raise the hood" on the FPIII and install some mods.
Thats my story to date. I'm sure there will be more to come. I'm anxiously but patiently waiting for some type of DAC to come from Bottlehead.
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Bought a Parasex amp after reading the ad in Sound Practices (sometime in the last century). Keep coming back. Well impressed with the Bottlehead team.
(Lost my Audio Asylum login and have just registered here.)
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Ages ago I stumbled upon a post at AudioAsylum mentioning Bottlehead. Back then I didn't know the greatness behind vacuum tubes, the enjoyment behind building a kit or appreciate the vintage style of the plate on wooden base look.
More recently, I decided that building an amp was on the bucket list, and I put together a Millet MiniMAX kit. While the build was enjoyable, there really wasn't much opportunity to tweak the design. I then decided that I would take a crack at the Crack headphone amp. Now that I've gotten a bit older, I've grown to appreciate the Bottlehead look, old-school vacuum tube designs and building my own equipment, and oddly enough, shun the minimalist-looking SS equipment I listened to when I was younger.
The Crack build was enjoyable and sounds excellent... which led me to build the Seduction and I'm now planning on building the S.E.X. when time permits. Bottlehead gear is just far too addictive ;)
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I was talking to my friend one day in my 12th grade English class and mentioned that I was a fan of tube guitar gear and was looking for the modern equivalent of a Heathkit stereo. He mentioned that his dad (Doc B) does stuff like that, and that I should check out the website. I logged on, and I was hooked. I must have read every review on every forum about these things. I couldn't be happier with the product, and the people who make it. Thanks.
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I was talking to my friend one day in my 12th grade English class and mentioned that I was a fan of tube guitar gear and was looking for the modern equivalent of a Heathkit stereo. He mentioned that his dad (Doc B) does stuff like that, and that I should check out the website. I logged on, and I was hooked. I must have read every review on every forum about these things. I couldn't be happier with the product, and the people who make it. Thanks.
As a tribute to my bad eyesight and addled brain I thought that this read that you were teaching the English class. You are a classmate to Shawn.
D'Oh!
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Colin actually. I'm a young guy in this forum, I suppose. Only a sophomore in college. People my age give me blank stares when I say things about tubes and vinyls. They also tend to say things like "You're kinda weird, aren't you?"
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Cool! I tried to raise my 3 nephews to like vinyl and tubes, but to no avail. All three are still in their 20s.
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You may not have infected your lucky nephews, but if it is any consolation, you can remember that I wouldn't be nearly as far gone into this hobby as I am if it weren't for you.
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Paul, Paully, and I met through the Bottlehead site. He has built a FP 2, FP III, SEX, Seduction, Eros and Paramounts. That is more Bottlehead kits than I have built.
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Somehow I got here through Head Fi...
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From surfing the net looking for tube amps. Lurked around for several years before buying a Stereomour. Great amp. Great company.
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Through Head-Fi.
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Recent posts show a number of Head-Fi. Bottlehead must have some good talk going on over there.
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Not sure I can say exactly but the story is something like this:
I've always loved music and had a great SS system when I was in High school back in the late 70s. Bang & Olufsen TT, TEAC Real to Real, JVC amp and Bose 901 SII back when it all was new. For a High School kid that was quite a system.
Then there was the real life phase and I found myself about 10 years ago listening to my computer through cheap speakers and realized there was something wrong with this picture.
Initially, I tried re-creating the great SS gear of my youth and got into some old Phase Linear gear. Love the look but maintenance became a night-mare. The Bottlehead site kept coming up when I surfed the net and I haunted the site quite a bit for years.
Then my boss came by one day and we realized we had a common interest in audio gear and he asked if I'd ever tried any tube gear. Neither of us had but I told him that I was strongly considering some of the bottlehead kits. I went home that night and bought a Quickie just to check it out.
The Quickie had a solid feel and great sound and Now I'm hooked. Built a Foreplay, found a Paramour kit that was still unassembled (still is but won't be for long), orded a Seduction and I'm considering a S.E.X.
I'll have to say that combination of great gear and awesome community make this a wonderful place to be. I wish I had started sooner.
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Vinyl and cassette in the late 70's through 80's with a Technics SL-D2, Sansui Receiver and ESS and CV speakers. Car audio in the late 80's through 90's where I first began soldering and building speaker cabs and cables. Interest in tube gear peaked by a company called Milbert that made an all tube car audio amplifier and Butler audio that made a hybrid. I never owned one but the cool glow peaked my interest and I found that vintage and new tube gear was still pretty big in home audio. Around 2000 I picked up a Kalamazoo Bass 30 tube bass amp and somehow managed to fix it with some forum help. Makes a better guitar amp with a pedal ahead of it than a bass amp. Then a Scott tube integrated I managed to restore. Then back into vinyl with Music Hall table and I almost bought the Seduction back then but bought the Haggerman Cornet instead ... Sorry guys, I just wasnt patient enough to wait. Im still not patient when it comes to waiting. Picked up a Jolida Hybrid integrated, built several speakers, both full rangers and conventional, A DIY tube 35, a little S5, got an Ah Tjoeb cheap because it didnt work and fixed that (a wire was loose), a couple other tube CDP's ... a hiatus from spending money and building anything new for several years. Finally, decided I needed a headphone system and I headed here first, just on a whim figuring that Bottlehead had to have a Headphone amp by now with the popularity of phones these days. I was right, you had two. Bought the Crack kit which was just supposed to be fed by a digital player but has quickly turned into a full blown second system for the lazy chair with a TT, CDP and the Digital player and Crack, Seduction and FPIII. I still cant really read a schematic but I can follow some of them and along with a little help I have managed to get by fine. But I can solder and I can follow directions and Crack, Seduction and FPIII all worked on first flip of the switch. And I do know what throws me off the most about tube based schematics ... It's that they only show 1/2 the circuit. Eventhough the other 1/2 is the same, Im too visual of a person. I need to see the whole thing, then maybe I would have a better shot at figuring it out.
Anyway ... sure glad you guys are still here. Wish I was more patient back then, and smarter. Bottlehead gear is still a bargain today but things were less expensive back then. $99 for the FP ... c'mon, what a bawgen dat vuz. More patience and smarts back then and I probably would have had a bunch of Bottlehead stuff already before I ever hunted you guys down again for the headphone amp (turned second system).
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I ran across Steve Guttenberg's article on the Quickie at CNET and the rest was history!
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Well Grainger.... you can chalk up another one for Harvey.... I received an email from him suggesting , IF i was wanting to get into the kits... he had one word and one word only.... Bottlehead... so I share your experience... :)
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Maxwell,
There is 'support' for the weird here. As Earwaxer and myself can attest, 'think I'm weird now? I've already been helped.'
Ok, I had noticed BH from time to time over the years, but only recently, Tuffy Puppy, aka Don Pettit, steered me here. Don and I got aquanted at the Decware site, but wanted more, at least in a different direction. I can't tell you guys enough how great this site and members are. It means a great deal to me, and don't ever think that all of my questions are just dropped at some point. That would lead you to think that might have wasted time by answering. Not true! It guides the curious(me) to greater experience and enjoyment. 'What if' will never leave my head, and this is by far the best resource for help and answers.
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I've spent my whole life as a DIYer and HiFi enthusiast. To the best of my memory, I stumbled on to the Electronic Tonalities (Bottlehead) website around 1997. At the time I had 2 Krell amps, some PSB speakers, a Cal Audio tube DAC and transport, and some preamp. I was working lots of overtime trying to assemble a system based on Stereophile recommended components, and was really pretty happy with the results. I convinced my wife to purchase a Foreplay kit ($99) and a Paramour kit for me ($349 I think) for Christmas, I believe. I had no idea what I was getting other than there was a very enthusiastic group of people on this forum singing the praises of these components. I grabbed the Whamodyne speaker design and ordered up those cheap MCM drivers, because I knew my PSB speakers wouldn't cut it with only 3.5 watts. I have to admit, the thought of an aluminum cone driver made me shutter. After all I was a Stereophile reader, there's no way this will sound as good as my PSB's. I built the speakers over Christmas break in an ice cold garage ( I live in Nebraska, so it really was ice cold). I new the ET kits would have to sit if I built them first, so I knocked out the speakers in a couple weekends. My kits were wrapped nicely under the tree on Christmas morning, and I tore into them like a kid! I was so excited. My wife then told me that she had talked to Eileen at Bottlehead when she ordered them, and Eileen had went out of her way to make sure they arrived in time for Christmas. As she told the story of the great interaction with Eileen, she admitted to waiting way to long to order the kits. Eileen made sure the got out and they arrived Christmas eve day. I began the assembly of the Foreplay, and over the next 3-4 weeks, I built the Foreplay and Paramours in stock form. I had an old Marantz receiver I snagged from the goodwill for $25, and I played the Whamodynes in my dungeon of a basement while I built the kits. I was surprised at the sound they put out, but didn't really pay much attention to them. I was focused on getting the kits done. Once they were finished I set them up in the dungeon on a cinder block DIY rack. I hooked up my very first CD player (vintage 1985, I purchased when I was 15 years old for like $400. Insane!) and turned on all the power. As I rolled the volume up I was pumped! It worked! I sat down in a folding chair, and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I was blown away! This meager hand built by me system was killing my main system that had I spent crazy amounts of money on. I was in love with the sound. It didn't take long before I started on modifications based around reports on the forum, and it just kept getting better. As time went on, my Stereophile components were sold off, and I worked to get the most out of my Bottlehead system. Fast forward about 15 years, to the present, I have a much nicer basement now, but the same Foreplay and Paramours. The Foreplay has a string of mods I likely can't remember, and I just installed C4S and upgraded iron in my Paramours this year, after waiting 5 or 6 years, because I never wanted to be without the amps. C4S and iron was a huge upgrade to say the least. Maybe someday I'll feel the urge to try out Paramount or whatever else Doc and the guys come up with, but for now I'm set on amps. I did purchase a Foreplay 3 to replace my current Foreplay, but I haven't built it yet. I just finished a Crack amp, and am getting ready to start modifying it. My current system also has Seduction with C4S, a DIY turntable based around the Teres motor kit, and Pi stage 4 speakers. It's the best system I have ever heard at any price. Bottlehead has a lifelong customer in me. Thank you for your wonderful products and customer support, your truly a world class group of people. I can't wait for my kids to get a bit older so we can start building some kits together, and I can expose them to this wonderful hobby.
Pfenning
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Wow, thanks for such kind words! Our customers are the reason we keep pecking away at this weird little niche business - your enthusiasm rubs off on us.
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My first experience with the bottlehead name came from auditioning a pair of 1976 Klipsch Cornwalls at a gentlemens house.
I told the wife I was going to need the station wagon to go to work that day because they were discarding a few odds and ends that I wanted to take home (I work in a television studio).
The gentleman who auditioned the cornwalls for me had the bottlehead paramour II's setup.
I arrived home that evening with some rather large speakers, and an itch to follow-up on this wonderful new name "bottlehead". Found this forum, and since that time, I have built the Foreplay III and am in the process of putting together the Paramount kit right now!
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Pfenning,
What a great story -- thanks for sharing that with us. I'm on very much the same path having just sold off my Shindo amp in preparation for an almost all bottlehead system. Getting back to my DIY roots and all that. For me it is a confluence of several different factors -- one is that I've just never been wowwed in proportion to what I've spent on high-end gear (though the shindo was an exception but way expensive for somebody in my shoes). Two is that the more I come to understand what is going into the bottlehead gear, the engineering, the choices made, the custom iron, and the inherent tweakability/voiceability of the gear to my liking. Third would be the fact that I can also customize the looks and appearance to my tastes, but most of all it is the performance and sound quality -- price notwithstanding. Of course the idea of building it myself is also very appealing. I do also have to mention that a good part of my currennt motivation has been the speakers that Clark Blumenstein makes and their synergy with bottlehead gear -- this is the icing on the cake, and together with the bh gear promises an audio system that I will, probably for the first time, think of as end-game audio.
I don't need jewelry, bragging rights or a system to wow the friends and neighbors (ever notice how most people who are not into audio don't really care at all what the system sounds like anyway?) I want a sound that impresses and relaxes me and that can play my favorite musics in such a way that I don't even have to think of gear anymore.
So, now as we plan to move to a new house, it is a great time to part with the old, re-evaluate, simplify, and add a level of consistency to the entire system and then spend the time honing it as necessary.
Of course the great community here, the great service and integrity of the folks at BH, are also important and just make it all the more worthwhile.
-- Jim