Hello,
I see you have a Vulcan 240. The story behind this amp is this. It was designed in Canada by Franco Vila, a somewhat poor business man, but apparently a terrific designer. He even wound the transformers himself using a machine he built. He is no longer in the audio business, having sold the rights, spare parts and plans to a fellow by the name of Mark Schrauen (also in Canada). The amps are still being produced in made to order quantities. Your amp probably came via the Asian distributor Franco had early on.
I have personally repaired about a dozen of these amps. Every amp was slightly different in parts and construction. The owners of them, love them. It is a service tech's worst nightmare though.
One hint - use the best quality output tubes you can. The unit should auto bias them.
Please note, that the above mentioned people do not service or support these amps. I have some circuit details if your interested.
I see you have a Vulcan 240. The story behind this amp is this. It was designed in Canada by Franco Vila, a somewhat poor business man, but apparently a terrific designer. He even wound the transformers himself using a machine he built. He is no longer in the audio business, having sold the rights, spare parts and plans to a fellow by the name of Mark Schrauen (also in Canada). The amps are still being produced in made to order quantities. Your amp probably came via the Asian distributor Franco had early on.
I have personally repaired about a dozen of these amps. Every amp was slightly different in parts and construction. The owners of them, love them. It is a service tech's worst nightmare though.
One hint - use the best quality output tubes you can. The unit should auto bias them.
Please note, that the above mentioned people do not service or support these amps. I have some circuit details if your interested.
Hello folks, I was the one who built the 4 tube driver/ pre driver hardwired point to point circuits for the Vulcan 240 just as they were changing to the Vulcan 280. I built about 100 of these circuits whereas 2 circuits per amp giving it 8 tubes for just the driver circuits alone.
Never was I given the chance to hear a Vulcan power amp, but I just know it should sound incredible. One of the nicest looking HI-FI power amps ever made.
Symetra
Never was I given the chance to hear a Vulcan power amp, but I just know it should sound incredible. One of the nicest looking HI-FI power amps ever made.
Symetra
vulcan 280 experience
Hi all.
A vulcan 280 has crossed my bench. Thanks to some of you I finally did get the confidence to get this back to the customer.
The main issue came from a broken off wire on the driver stage current source rider board...this board is double sided taped to the top of some transistors in a cavity that i cant figure out how to get to.
In any case with long needle nose pliers and much burning fingers I was able to bond the wire back on. These transistors also has poor skywiring...and at least on one two pins were touching.
I put this narrow board inside some large OD heat shrink tubing so it would not rattle around and short again.
in the end this amp sounds very very good. I agree the driver is well built. The thing makes 130w in pentode mode with no visible harmonics on my fft scope. In triode mode I can get to 80w before the second harmonic and third start to appear. I cant hear the difference even with carefull listening....but im used to low power SE amps.
The customer did not want me to fix the bias level display...two leds are never on but the corresponding tubes are fine. I have to say the bias display is very sexy...with subtle gradients of red to yellow to green. I stillwant to figure out how the guy got this to work ( tricolor leds) in such an analog fashion with only a dual comparator per tube. I'd love the schematic!!
Hi all.
A vulcan 280 has crossed my bench. Thanks to some of you I finally did get the confidence to get this back to the customer.
The main issue came from a broken off wire on the driver stage current source rider board...this board is double sided taped to the top of some transistors in a cavity that i cant figure out how to get to.
In any case with long needle nose pliers and much burning fingers I was able to bond the wire back on. These transistors also has poor skywiring...and at least on one two pins were touching.
I put this narrow board inside some large OD heat shrink tubing so it would not rattle around and short again.
in the end this amp sounds very very good. I agree the driver is well built. The thing makes 130w in pentode mode with no visible harmonics on my fft scope. In triode mode I can get to 80w before the second harmonic and third start to appear. I cant hear the difference even with carefull listening....but im used to low power SE amps.
The customer did not want me to fix the bias level display...two leds are never on but the corresponding tubes are fine. I have to say the bias display is very sexy...with subtle gradients of red to yellow to green. I stillwant to figure out how the guy got this to work ( tricolor leds) in such an analog fashion with only a dual comparator per tube. I'd love the schematic!!
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