After years of resisting, I’ve persuaded myself to build myself a thermionic valve based amplifier and have decided on a couple of Dynaco MKIII’s. I’m not looking to faithfully reproduce the looks of a Mk3, in my opinion it’s not the prettiest of amplifiers and hope to end up with something looking sleek and modern.
Here’s the rub….
Does anyone know where I can obtain power (230V mains) and output transformers and the supply choke in the UK? I note there are many worthy contenders from the US and Canada but the cost of shipping to the UK is very high.
I am tempted by a toroidal power transformer, like the Tomiko part available from eBay, but the shipping to the UK is nearly the cost of the transformer again. The Tomiko toroid also has 2 x 6.3V heater windings which could help wiring layout.
As for the output transformer, I believe this should be as close as possible to the original – unless the knowledgeable members of this forum tell me otherwise.
Finally, I plan to point-to-point wire the supply and driver stages instead of using the PCB used on the original MK3’s and use 4 separate 600V 105degC axial electrolytics instead of the quad cap of the original, I believe a better layout can be achieved, but again I would value opinion.
I’ll use modern, high quality components throughout (not necessarily “audiophile” which don’t always offer true value for money) and other than using a silicon diode to replace the selenium rectifier and I’m not planning any other changes to the design…… Yet! I want to see how it performs and sounds 'as is' first.
Anyway, any help with a UK source for the transformers would be really appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Russell
Here’s the rub….
Does anyone know where I can obtain power (230V mains) and output transformers and the supply choke in the UK? I note there are many worthy contenders from the US and Canada but the cost of shipping to the UK is very high.
I am tempted by a toroidal power transformer, like the Tomiko part available from eBay, but the shipping to the UK is nearly the cost of the transformer again. The Tomiko toroid also has 2 x 6.3V heater windings which could help wiring layout.
As for the output transformer, I believe this should be as close as possible to the original – unless the knowledgeable members of this forum tell me otherwise.
Finally, I plan to point-to-point wire the supply and driver stages instead of using the PCB used on the original MK3’s and use 4 separate 600V 105degC axial electrolytics instead of the quad cap of the original, I believe a better layout can be achieved, but again I would value opinion.
I’ll use modern, high quality components throughout (not necessarily “audiophile” which don’t always offer true value for money) and other than using a silicon diode to replace the selenium rectifier and I’m not planning any other changes to the design…… Yet! I want to see how it performs and sounds 'as is' first.
Anyway, any help with a UK source for the transformers would be really appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Russell
