KIT delivery time on Bottlehead amp kits - 4 to 6 weeks ???

I am considering one of Bob's Dynaco ST-70 kits OR one of the Bottlehead kits. The thing that gets me though is that on the Bottlehead web site they mention a 4 to 6 week wait before you get your kit. Bottlehead charges your credit card the DAY of your order and put you on a list! They claim that they can provide you with a "lower price" this way. Personally I have never heard of any company doing business this way and feel if they charge your card they should ship the item. They have your money for a month and you haven't received anything other than I assume an Email stating that your card has been charged. Has anybody heard of any other audio company or tube kit company doing this ? RockyAM

I'm not sure I would go with Bottlehead. Their web-site is really tacky and lacks taste. In other words, totally unprofessional. I would look no farther than a Dynaco from Bob. I was in the market for a tube amp (preferably in kit form) and was ready to give up until I saw something on Canuck Audio Mart by some guy building a Latino amp. I had never heard that an entire Dynaco amp was offered anymore, nevermind a totally upgraded one. Once I am ready for an amp upgrade, this is where I'll be looking.

Bill

Hey Bob - You are right. I just called the Bottlehead people and asked them why they would charge my credit card a month before they would ship one of their kits. They were very curt with me and just said that was their policy as you mentioned. I was going to buy their Foreplay preamp kit to go along with my ST-70 amp but the hell with them. I am going to look more carefully now at thr Transcendent preamp and the tubes4hifi SP-8 preamp kit. Dynaluva

Wow!

If there was any question in my mind about it being a legit practice ... well, a curt response to an honest enquiry about a practice that just invites question? Kinda tends to confirm ... a negative impression of the company.

I, too, was considering one of their integrated amps for another system for the office. I think I'll skip that now.

By the way, I've also got a Transcendent GG with my ST 70, and I'm sure enjoying how Sonny Rollins sounds through it as I type this.

I don't have the strongest basis for making this comparative inference, so I'm out on a bit of a limb here. That said, from having read around a bit about pre-amps, I think on merit, Bottleheads, which I understand to be very good, really might not be as good a match for your Dynaco as the GG or the pre-amps put out by VTA.

I'm quite curious, myself, how the SP8 would sound compared to my GG... I wonder how long I can resist the temptation?

4-6 weeks is an awful long delay, even if they are sourcing all their parts from China or who knows where.
Now although I usually ship within 24-48 hours after receiving payment for a kit, on some special items (my SP8-SE preamp kit for example) I do have to order several of the parts, some of which take 2-3 weeks to get (custom made front and rear panels for example) but I still ship the PCB kit portion of it immediately, and let the customer know that the rest of the package will be delayed.
I don't stock the larger and more expensive parts, like chassis and transformers, but certainly all the PCBs, resistors, and small parts. Sometimes I do have to order special capacitors or tubes, but I've never had a complaint when they know they're gonna get it for sure in 2-3 weeks max.
So I can understand a delay, but waiting 4-6 weeks for nothing is too long a wait for anything!!!
Roy www.tubes4hifi.com

I bought a pair of their Paramour 2A3 SET kits about 3 years ago and yes they did charge my credit card immediately and I didn't receive the two kits until about 5 weeks later. In fact the credit card bill came in and I paid the credit card bill before the two kits arrived! This didn't set too well with me but they did finally ship the two kits. I built them and they sounded OK but I could never get all the hum out of them. They have a hum balance pot underneath the 2A3 tube you can adjust but it never got all the hum out. The constant hum bugged me so much that I wound up selling the pair of amps about a year later. Tom B.

Yes, stay away from Bottlehead. This way I don't have to quite as long for their superior kits.

Instead of a Bottlehead amp, I did wind up buying Bob's ST-70 kit almost 2 years ago. Excellent instruction manual, Bob ... MY ST-70 amp has worked flawlessly for 2 years. I play it a lot and I should probably think about some new tubes by now ? The other reason I didn't go with the Bottlehead amp was that they only make low powered SET type amps. The Bottlehead amps probably sound great but the lower power of their amps limits your choice in speakers. 8 watts just won't drive speakers of normal efficiency. I probably would have been forced to buy much higher efficiency speakers.

One other thing .. Hey, Bob this ST-70 will play pretty LOUD for a 35 watt per channel amp. Are any of those parts in there that you sent me on steroids or something ? RockyAM

I ordered my ST-120 kit from Bob on New Years day (Sunday I think) IIRC, and it was waiting on my doorstep Tuesday. This was just the beginning of great customer service! Thanks BOB!

I just want to apologize for any crankiness in my response, I certainly didn't mean to disparage anyone's kits. There is something else going on that deserved my ire, not audio related; and, unfortunately, that old post was low hanging fruit that could be reached while the real target can't. Again, I offer my apologies.

Rich

Hmmm. FWIW 'Crip, I heard it as humour and thought it pretty funny. Conveyed, on one hand, your decision to go with a BH pre, yet acknowledging on the other hand the issue of being made to wait 4 - 6 weeks from the time of payment.

Bob Latino wrote:
2. More B+ DC power storage than the original ST-70
Bob

This won't make a difference in most steady-state testing, as the limiting factor is still the ability of the power transformer and rectifier to keep that storage reservoir full; but in real-world audio, it DOES!!