Van Alstine Ultra-Valve Award Winning Handmade Tube Amp #19 Built

Description: Once in Lifetime Chance to Own Historical Van Alstine Tube Amplifier. Hand Built #19 with Letter Confirmed by Factory.Original 2010 Design won Rocky Mountain Hi-Fi Show "Best of Show".Brand New Appearance in original packing and box.Used just 6 months with very low hours then reboxed.Van Alstine Ultra-Valve #19 Built Tube Amp.Priced For Sale as Collectible.$3000 Tone Audio. Review:Frank Van Alstine has been at this game for a long time. He started out modding and repairing Dynaco electronics 30-plus years ago, and revamped the ST 70 circuit so much over the years that it is now truly his own design now. The Ultravalve is still based on a pair of 6CA7 output tubes (EL34 or KT77 tubes can be used as well), but it does not have a switch for triode mode, fancy power output meters or anything that distracts from the amplifier’s performance. And its price is right: $1,999 puts one in your hot little hands. Like the original ST 70, the Ultravalve uses a 5AR4 rectifier tube and a pair of more readily available 6GH8A small-signal tubes in place of the now long-obsolete 7199 tubes in the ST 70, which is fetching premium prices online. The Ultravalve is one of the first power amplifiers I’ve listened to with which I just don’t feel the need to roll tubes. It sounds just fine as is, and a little bit of research shows that there aren’t a lot of variations on the 6GH8A tube anyway. Perusing Mr. Van Alstine’s board on the AudioCircle forum shows him to be a practical man, so I just enjoyed the amp’s stock tubes. Using the Ultravalve with similarly priced components is highly rewarding. It is fully capable of anchoring a modestly priced but high-performance system. Mating the amp to a Conrad-Johnson PV-12 preamplifier (with CJ’s recent capacitor updates), an Oppo BDP-105 universal player and the Rega RP6 turntable, with a pair of KEF LS50 speakers, proves breathtaking—especially for a relatively inexpensive system like this one. But you’ll be surprised just how damn good the Ultravavle sounds as part of a no-holds-barred system. While the 35 watts per channel of the Ultravalve may not be enough juice for everyone, if that much wattage will work for you, I cannot recommend this amp highly enough. The level of resolution, tonality and bass control this amplifier offers for $1,999 is unmatched by anything I’ve ever experienced at this price point. I am very proud to award the Ultravalve one of our Exceptional Value Awards for 2013. I’m keeping this one! The Absolute Sound. Review 2010.According to Frank Van Alstine, the Ultravalve’s lineage is traceable to the Dynaco Stereo 70, which he denotes as its “great grandmother.” The ST-70 has got to be the most successful basic power amplifier of all time with estimated sales in excess of 300,000 units. This is the amp that in the 70s steered me clear of solid-state designs and cemented my lifelong love affair with tube amplification. In fact, I still own a beautiful Will Vincent ST-70 rebuild. Frank started taking a close engineering look at the ST-70 in the late 70s, the result being an upgrade kit that achieved reduced distortion and improved stability. Power-supply design improvements followed later, including a separate high-voltage regulated power supply for each plate of each small-signal tube, and these were incorporated into a new board design. The end result was the Ultimate 70 amp-rebuild kit, which is said to be the “mother” of the Ultravalve amplifier. In essence, the Ultravalve represents the distillation of over 30 years of design experience. It is intended as a thoroughly modern and rationally priced vacuum tube amplifier. A new polished-steel chassis is sourced from Dynakitparts, while the double-anodized, bead-blast-finished gold faceplate is sourced from a local vendor. The basic Dyna internal layout has been maintained, as it was felt that it works very well. However, all active electronics are located internally. Coupling and feedback circuitry use a new double-sided ground plane PC board. The power bandwidth is said to have been widened to -3dB at 50kHz and 5Hz while still maintaining the goal of no feedback-related overload under any condition of use. The basic signal path and tube choices remain unchanged from the original. A single 6GH8A pentode-triode tube is used per channel. It is similar in performance (but not as far as pinout) to the 7199 used by Dynaco prior to the ST-70 Series II. The switch was necessitated when the supply of 7199s dried up. The pentode section provides plenty of voltage gain while the triode is deployed as a cathodyne phase-inverter. The power supply is tube-rectified via a single 5AR4. The push-pull output stage uses a pair of 6CA7/EL34s in ultralinear connection. My sample was outfitted with Electro Harmonix 6CA7EH beam power tetrodes. Of course, EL34 power pentodes may be used as well. The whole thing, says Frank, except for some active and passive electronic parts, is made in the U.S.A. The Ultravalve consistently sounded more powerful than its nominal 35Wpc. It handled bass lines with superb control and good impact. This was quite a surprise as I was fully prepared to have to render the obligatory faint praise of “pretty good for a tube amp.” Well, no wonder Frank named this guy Ultravalve—it is ultra-special in the bass. But be sure to respect its need for a speaker with a sensitivity of at least 88dB, and please don’t venture below a 4-ohm impedance. Within these constraints, which are of course met by the SongTower, I can safely state that the Ultravalve is capable of dishing out plenty of boogie factor. Its ability to retrieve microdynamic nuances allowed the full scope of the music’s dynamic intensity and of the interaction between musicians to shine through. And it didn’t shy away from driving the music from soft to loud with conviction, being far more assured macrodynamically than the vintage ST-70 ever was. Music lovers rejoice! In my estimation, Ultravalve represents the most musical audio dollars you’re ever likely to spend during a lifetime of consumption. Yet, it proved to be one of the most enjoyable in some 30 years of audio reviewing, and enjoying the music is what this passion of ours should be all about. A four-star recommendation!

Price: 3000 USD

Location: Cleveland, Ohio

End Time: 2023-10-01T20:00:29.000Z

Shipping Cost: N/A USD