In 1961 Dynaco came out with its first FM tuner the FM-1. Although this tuner was not very sensitive, if fed a strong signal, it WAS a nice sounding tuner. During the early 1960's STEREO FM was just starting and Dynaco created an FMX-3 multiplex insert to upgrade the FM-1 to receive stereo broadcasts. What many Dynaco tube fans do not know is that Dynaco also came out in 1963 with an "insert amplifier kit" that could be inserted into the space for the FMX-3 multiplex unit called the FMA-2. The FMA-2 essentially turned the FM-1 into an FM radio but without a speaker. The FMA-2 was a single channel amplifier similar to one channel of an ST-35 amp. This little amp module used two EL84 output tubes but used a 12AX7 driver tube while the ST-35 used a 12DW7 driver tube. The real interesting thing was that you could use the FM-1/FMA-2 just as a mono tuner without a speaker if you wanted and no harm would come to the amp section. This is probably Dynaco's rarest piece of tube gear. In 1964 Dynaco came out with their FM-3 stereo tuner. This left the FM-1, FMX-3 and the FMA-2 as largely forgotten pieces of Dynaco history. Only once in the past 15 years or so have I ever seen an FMA-2 insert amp for sale on Ebay. If you are interested in checking out more info on the FMA-2, a link to the manual is below ..
FMA-2 insert amplifier manual
Bob
Last edited by Bob Latino on Wed May 03, 2017 10:00 am; edited 1 time in total
