Amplification components

Gennady Croc review listening impressions vintage

Harman Kardon Citation II stereo power amplifier

Although its number is 2 this the first power amplifier that was developed by Harman (Citation I is a pre).

It was manufactured between 1959 and 1962 and costed then 230$.

It was designed to be as neutral sounding as possible (forget about vintage mellow sound) and with high bandwidth.

This was achieved by usung fantastic transformers, television 12BY7 input / driver tubes and high 30db feedback (not very fashonable today).

In the bottom line Harman succeed to achieve frequency response of 18 - 40,000 Hz (at 1 watt) - pretty exceptional even today for a tube amplifier.ago.

Wait - there is even more !!!

It produces full 60 watts output at 20 - 20,000 Hz (!!!) bandwitdth with only 0.5% THD.

This is absolutelly unbelievable for 45 years ago era.

No wonder most of those amplifiers ended at recording studios.

I got it about 6 years ago and almost immidiately got Jim McShane kits installed for overhauling power supply and capacitors.

The result was very good - sound became cleaner and more transparent, bass (surprise surprise) became eve firmer.

In short - i highly recommend it.

Tube rolling:

Originally i got the Citation II with General Electric 6550 tubes.

Those sound very clean, a bit on a cold side, with crisp high extended treble, firm deep bass and overally highly ebergetic sound.

I replaced them by Electro Harmonix KT-88's.

They do loose a bit in bass and treble extension departments but overal I liked more their warmer and more natural sound.

Lately (January 2009) i put Ei KT-90 type II - they indeed sound more powerfull and with better control over tough speaker loads (i needed that form my "new" JBL L-200's).

VTL The Ultimate Preamplifier

This top of the line pre-amplifier produced by VTL (Vacuum Tube Logic) when David Manley still was hart of the company.

It's from ~1989.

It's a fully dual mono design - separate power supplies, power cords, input selectors etc.

It also has built in phono stage which is considered to be quite qood.

I actually didn't figure out how to make it work with MC cartridge but it works great with MM and High Output MC.