On Oct 19, 12:11 am, "Iain Churches" wrote:
"Andre Jute" wrote

Real tubies build real valve amp kits, like
my Velleman K4000, three EL34 per side for 18W in Class A and 101W in
Class B (measured, they claim only 16/96W). Now that is an amp that
leaves hairy footprints.

Interesting you should mention the Velleman. It is indeed a good sounding
amp. It is a long time since I have seen a K4000, but I seem to recollect
it had four EL34's in push pull parallel per side.

PPP.

It seems as though the K4000 is discontinued.

Mine is ancient. Early to mid-1990s, at a guess, without looking up
the reviews I wrote of it.

I listened to a 4040 not too long ago, with a pair of splendid Tannoy
Canterbury
SE speakers. Very pleasing indeed. The amp was running far below its full
power potential.

Quite a bizarre thing to say, I suppose, but the Velleman is probably
overmatched to the Tannoys. It has around 16 to 18W in Class A alone.
I sometimes used mine for driving a bass bin, where its 100W in Class
A/B could sometimes come into play, at least theoretically (I'm not a
headbanger).

The noise floor was exceptionally low. Later, a quick
look on the bench revealed the noise floor to be 100µV, so a
SNR of 105dB and at 96W, the THD was only 0.1%

It depends on your outlook whether you view the Velleman K40x0 as that
rare thing, a perfect all-round amp -- or as a perfectly schizophrenic
amp: on the one hand superbly well designed and good-sounding,
escpecially in that very hefty Class A segment, a delicate match to
ESL-63, on the other hand a brutish bass thumper on demand. As an all-
round amp of excellent quality and durability it is of course a very
great bargain at the price.

The Belgians know how to make more than just chocolates:-)

We used to make a round trip of 50 miles to buy Belgian chocolates in
Cork...

Regards
Iain

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Amps at http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/
"wonderfully well written and reasoned information
for the tube audio constructor"
John Broskie TubeCAD & GlassWare
"an unbelievably comprehensive web site
containing vital gems of wisdom"
Stuart Perry Hi-Fi News & Record Review