Sale of SR-45s cancelled.

[Jim R.]

First of all, I do have Dan's permission to post this.  Anyway, I very reluctantly need to sell the SR-45s I bought from Dan last June.  These are the pair that used to drive the tweeter amps in his system at BHQ and were factory built.  The issue is that with the low gain of my custom preamp and the low gain of these amps I simply don't have enough gain for my Blumenstein Nagas.  Orcas are a bit better, but still not enough.  Note that the preamp is lower gain than most and almost any other active preamp would work fine.

Here's the catch -- if possible I'd like to hold on to the all-nickel tfa-2004 jrs that are in the amps now, so I'd like to either sell them without the output transformers, or would consider partial trade for a similar pair of all nickel 3k transformers -- such as the MQ BH-5s found in the paramour II and Paramount upgrade kits.  In fact, if you have a Paramour II upgrade kit (both outputs and plate chokes), then I will also take those in trade.

I do also have the possibility of getting new transformers from MQ, but I'm waiting to hear from Mike as to what he can do for me, in which case I can just sell these as-is with the tfa-2004 jrs.  These amps also have the bcp-16 gcni grid chokes.

Anyway, base price for the pair would be $1700, minus whatever trade-in or I would take $500 off I can keep the tfa-2004s.

So, if you have a 3k or 5k mq transformer that you can transplant into these amps -- stock iron from paramounts, exo 45s, etc, then I will sell the pair of amps sans outputs for $1200.

They are in decent condition (the same as when BH sent them to me, and had no shipping damage on that trip), I've gone over them looking for any loose joints or components and everything looks solid, the coupling caps are russian teflons, and I'm not sure what the PF caps are.  The amps will also come with the stock 6cm7 driver tubes and the stock (sylvania) 45s, all of which sound fine and have no microphonic or noise issues.

If you're interested please email me and we can talk specifics.

Thanks,

Jim

[Jim R.]

So, I can take as low as $1000 sans OPTs, or with an equivalent OPT swap, but even after some more experimentation today it's clear that the BH custom preamp, the SR-45s and the Blumensteint speakers are not going to work for the long term for me.  My LM Mini amp can drive these speakers in this same setup to ear bleeding levels, so it's not the power, but the gain structure of this system.  And wow, do these amps ever sound fine with the EML 45 mesh tubes!

-- Jim

[2wo]

Hi Jim,
Sorry to hear that that you need to let these go. I know what you mean about the low gain, I once tried replacing the input section with a 12AT7, the increase  in gain was not enough for me to get by without a line stage and I didn't like the sound as much as the 6CM7. I will pass this on to a friend to see if he is interested...John     

[Jim R.]

John,

Thanks, but hold off a bit -- I have somebody interested.

If I still had my cornwalls it would be a no-brainer to hold onto these.

-- Jim

[Jim R.]

I am no longer offering these fantastic amps for sale.

Thanks to the 3 of you who had expressed interest and who bailed and/or offered suggestions on how to get some more out of them.  You guys are total class!

You can see the reasons for the reconsideration in the SR-45 thread in the legacy products board -- the one started by Deb.

-- Jim