[avahifi]

For what it is worth, there appears to be a really nice small chassis AVA Ultra SL preamp on E-Bay right now with bids still very reasonable ($500 range).

I can report that it is being sold by the original owner, was shipped in August, 2005, and still has over a year of AVA factory warranty for the second owner (as long as the original owner reports the transfer of ownership to us).

It does not have a phono section.  It does have our latest generation of gold contact logic level rocker switches, so switch dropouts will never be an issue.

The only real down side is that we cannot offer further upgrades to units in this small 12" wide chassis.  The newest generation Ultra mother board simply won't fit in the small chassis.  However, it is a really nice preamp as is, and it appears to be in excellent condition.

Frank Van Alstine

[rustneversleeps]

Frank,

What are the differences in circuitry between a small chassis Ultra and a later large chassis Ultra?

[Toka]

Furthermore, could a phono stage be added?

[avahifi]

The most obvious difference is that the "big" Ultra has a new unified mother board with room for up to eight separate high voltage regulated power supplies, one for each half of each tube.  There is not room for this in the small chassis (four high voltage regulated power supplies max) so the tube sections have to "share" regulators if the phono section is installed. In addition, there are layout and grounding changes, and some detail circuit improvements that could be done only with the new larger PC card real estate available.  None of this can be retrofitted back into the small SL chassis due to space limitations.

The Ultra phono board can be added to the SL, the cost is $499, one hundered more than at initial build, because the labor involved is much higher as a retrofit (even the power supply board must be pulled and partially rewired for the phono board addition.

Frank Van Alstine