A new pair of Ike's
Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2011 10:35 amUntil last evening, I had never heard an all-tube stereo system. I’ve been listening to the same integrated Denon amp for the last 25 years. When that amp started to audibly show its age, I decided to put my guitar amp-building skills to an audio application. After a lot of net-surfing research, I settled on a pair of Eiclones with a Grounded Grid preamp. The Eiclone topology was pretty straight-forward and most guitar amp-like that I could find. I got the Eiclones finished last week and the only way I could hear them was to run the signal through a guitar preamp. Last evening, I finished up the grounded-grid and was able to play the whole system. I am just stunned by the sound. It’s just phenomenal. Because I still have a good bit of cosmetic work yet to do, I’ve only played them through old polk audio bookshelf speakers in my shop. I can’t imagine this system through the Klipsch 5.5’s. I am so pumped!!!!! I didn’t have any experience with circuit boards so everything is point-to-to point. There was initially some noise in the preamp, but re-routing two signal wires took care of it.
