I'm selling my beautiful sounding Van Alstine Fet Valve Hybrid Preamp for $750.00. I am the original owner and bought this amp new in 2012 for $2499.00. The preamp is in perfect condition, no scrapes or dings and from a smoke and pet free house. This preamp has the updated motherboard that uses the 12AT7/ECC81 tubes. The installed JJ 12AT7 tubes are only 15 months old and will last for many more years.
The AVA Fet Valve Hybrid Preamps rarely come up for sale and when they do they sell fast. Audiophiles hold onto these preamps forever and for good reason, they are truely high end. I'm listening to it right now and the sound is real close to the AVA Fet Valve CFR preamp currently selling for $2299. This Fet Valve Hybrid preamp will elevate your system to true high end sound for 1/3 the cost of a new AVA preamp.
Frank Van Alstine writes:
"The Fet Valve preamplifier uses a similar dual triode voltage amplifier, but followed by a high current, high voltage power mos-fet transistor inside the feedback loop with similar low output impedance and high drive current capability.
"Note that the Fet Valve preamp has a bit of a back to the future design aspect. We used a very similar topography with some earlier Ultra hybrid preamps, but before devices were available to make them perform as well as our current design does. A drastically better mos-fet device, additional high voltage regulated power supplies (three per audio channel - - two for each tube, plus another for the mos-fet), a better layout and other useful circuit improvements make the Fet Valve preamp the best we have done.
"Note that the a very similar circuit is used in the Fet Valve 400R and 600R power amps, these amps could be considered to be Fet Valve preamps on steroids."
1Frank adds:
"The improvements with new the Fet Valve preamplifier and Fet Valve DAC are hard to verbalize. You will know it when you hear it.
"It is a matter of sounding more "relaxed" and "natural" while still retaining the amazing dynamics, micro-dynamics, range, and bass power and control our users already are familiar with.
"For example, this afternoon I am playing a CD of the London recording of H.M.S. Pinafore done by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company long ago. This series of nearly all the Gilbert and Sullivan classics was nearly universally panned as being nearly unlistenably bright and harsh. With a complete new Fet Valve system running my Salk HT3s, the music is wonderful and it is easy to understand all the words both with the solos and the large chorus. I have never heard this sound anywhere near this great before."
2The AVA Fet Valve Hybrid Preamp has a little of that tube magic, the sound is on the warm, musical side of neutral. The sound is never fatiguing, no matter how loud you like your music. If you are currently fighting bright, aggressive sounding speakers, this preamp will make your stereo sing.
The power supply consists of a multi-tapped shielded toroid power transformer, a high voltage diode bridge and four isolated high voltage active regulators, one for each half of each tube section. There are also separate regulated power supplies for the tube heaters and two more regulators for the line stage mos-fet buffers.
In addition to the large input, volume and balance knobs the preamp has:
- 6 Inputs
- Tape In and Tape Out jacks with a pushbutton switch for tape recording
- Stereo-Mono pushbutton switch
- Filter pushbutton switch which combines very high and very low frequency roll off
- Low Gain pushbutton switch which is useful for very high sensitivity speakers
- Headphone jack
- Chassis ground switch to eliminate the possibility of a ground loop hum
Van Alstine Fet Valve Hybrid Preamp - price $750 - SOLD
Shipped by FedEx from Tucson, AZ 85719
Add 3% for PayPal plus shipping
AVA Fet Valve Hybrid preamp - front
AVA Fet Valve Hybrid preamp - rear
AVA Fet Valve preamp - interior
1 https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=111224.msg1150351#msg1150351
2 https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=99122.msg1000144#msg1000144
