Bottlehead tube amps, biamped DIY Voxativ speakers

Description

Primarily a DIY effort. Tube amplification from Bottlehead and Heathkit. DIY open baffle speakers featuring Voxativ 1.6 full-range drivers. The signal goes out from the Bottlehead preamp into a Marchand crossover I built several years ago. Bottlehead 2A3s power the Voxativ drivers supplemented by Fostex super tweeters. The Voxativs are mounted on an open baffle that acts as a mechanical high pass filter at approximately 250 Hz. A pair of vintage Heathkit UA-2s drive the 15" Fostex woofers.

I recently added bass traps from Auralex and GIK Acoustics.These made a huge contribution to the clarity and detail of the system.

Components Toggle details

- Michell Engineering Gyro SE
Superb sound, a classic work of art
- Michell Engineering Technoarm
Rega 250 modified by Michell
- Shelter 501 Mk II
low output moving coil cartridge connected to a 15:1 step up transformer from Bob's Devices
- Lexicon RT-10
CD, SACD, universal format
- Bottlehead Eros Phono Stage
built from a Bottlehead kit in December 2014
- Botttlehead BeePre 300B Preamp
300B driver tubes and stepped attenuators. Supremely quiet and articulate.
- Marchand 2-way Crossover
Solid state, built from a kit. Crossover frequency of 250Hz.
- Bottlehead Paramour 2A3
Single ended, built from kit.
- Heathkit UA-2
Vintage EL-84 amplifiers from the 1960's, approximately 10 wpc. These drive high efficiency Fostex 15

Comments 11

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How does thebeepre compare to commercial offerings? I've been wanting to build one but I do have a vacuum state svp2 that I love. It is a 6dj8 based pre that retailed for around 7k.
Will I be wasting my time?

analogluvr March 26, 2015 16:31

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