Anyone else have a penchant / lust for a pair of Mk. IIIs?

Good day Gents!

Just wondering: Do anyone else have a pandering / need / "must have" for a pair of Dynaco MK. III monoblocks? For some reason, this is something that has been "growing" like a cancer on me for the past little while.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE my ST-70 (notwithstanding the criticism being thrown at me continuously regarding my choice of music - according to my teenage kids my Jazz & Classical are so YESTERDAY and my Industrial Rock does not befit someone my AGE) but there just is something about having a pair of monoblocks on the shelf - kinda like a sort of phallic symbol ("Not only is mine bigger, I have TWO!")

Perhaps me wanting to own a pair of Quad IIs when I was a kid, is what got me on this road. Problem with the Quads though is the crazy prices that the originals go for nowadays, and the modern "Commemorative" version sold by Quad is a clone made in China or some such place (nothing wrong with that, but it is also priced stupidly high considering the sum value of the components).

So.... job pressure prevents me from getting on with this at the moment - I'm just hopelessly snowed under at work, spilling over into my private life even, but I should start buying the bits & pieces needed to build myself a pair of clones. From my research it seems that there now is a VTA board available for the MK. III, so I'll probably start with that, and the rest piecemeal from someone like http://www.dynakitparts.com

Anybody have any ideas or thoughts on this - or any "Gotchas" I should be aware of? Any tube recommendations? (I won't be investing in a set of EAT KT-88s just yet :-/ )


-- JunkyJan

Not me, any more. With a pair of tweaked Mark II, I tried a pair of similarly tweaked Mark III that I had rebuilt for a friend, but I found myself with a subtle preference for the Mark II. Perhaps it's the EL34 output tubes. I didn't have a chance to swap the EL34s from the pair of Mark II into the Mark III (at the time they were Mullards); that may have settled matters had I a chance to try it. The difference in output power is insignificant, in my opinion.

...Only one to say that - I have heard this from someone else as well now.

Would you ascribe your preference to problems with the design of the Mk. III (O/P trannys, tube type issues etc) or just that the EL34 / KT66 seems to have a better presentation in general?

-- 'Jan

JunkyJan wrote:...Only one to say that - I have heard this from someone else as well now.

Would you ascribe your preference to problems with the design of the Mk. III (O/P trannys, tube type issues etc) or just that the EL34 / KT66 seems to have a better presentation in general?

-- 'Jan

My gut feeling is that it's the tubes themselves. I forget what it is now, but there is a definite difference between the construction of the 6550 types and the EL34 types. Maybe the way the grid is constructed, or something like that.

Jan,

Instead of a pair of 60 watt per channel Dynaco Mark III's you should consider Bob's ST-120 kit which (to me) seems the equivalent of two Dynaco Mark III's with the VTA driver board on one chassis. From the standpoint of value his amp kit is a better buy. Two Dynakit Mark III kits are from Dynakitparts are $500 each and the two VTA driver boards for the Mark III are $125 for the pair. Total = $1125 with no tubes. Bob's kit is $795 with no tubes which is a savings of $330 which is no small change. I have one of Bob's ST-70 kits that I put together. Very well designed with quality parts and an excellent insruction manual. I am sure the ST-120 would be be similar. RockyAM

Hi Junky Jan,Your post made me laugh!I have the same hankering for the Mark 3's.As far as being a phallic symbol,I don't know,but I have noticed this.The older you get,the more time you spend looking at a great example of a Mark 3 on the computer than you do browsing the internet for porn.....Mark Korda