The Absolute Best Deal at the RMAF was....

S Clark · « **on:** 19 Oct 2012, 08:08 pm »

the Dodd Battery Preamp w/ remote included for ..................wait................ $899.

This is the newer one tube version of the original battery pre that got all kinds of good press 4-5 years ago and sold for $3300.
I saw deals on cartridges, headphones, music servers, etc., but if I had to pick one, this is it.

Whose's next? One only.

Scott

ctviggen · « **Reply #1 on:** 20 Oct 2012, 12:06 am »

That's a fantastic deal for a great piece of equipment.

jtwrace · « **Reply #2 on:** 20 Oct 2012, 12:13 am »

The amazing ELAC 249BE were a smokin' good deal. The best $8k speaker I heard there.

DaveC113 · « **Reply #3 on:** 20 Oct 2012, 12:42 am »

I'd give that award to the dc10 audio / Tektron room. Speakers are $4500 and $2800 (show special) and the amp about $3k.

The Dodd stuff is really beautiful for sure, and sounded great. It does sound like a great deal... Anyone know how much those monoblock tube amps are going for?

gld · « **Reply #4 on:** 20 Oct 2012, 01:48 am »

$3200/pair as stock built units. Upgrades are available. The amps at the show were upgraded.
Of course they were battery powered! Larger models are available.
Gary

S Clark · « **Reply #5 on:** 20 Oct 2012, 01:54 am »

Quote from: gld on 20 Oct 2012, 01:48 am

$3200/pair as stock built units. Upgrades are available. The amps at the show were upgraded.
Of course they were battery powered!
Gary

Can you give us a bit more info? They look like 6QB5 tubes.??? What about wpc? Approx. how long will they run on... say 25 amp-hour battery? Are they similar in sound to your smaller 6QB5 amps?

gld · « **Reply #6 on:** 20 Oct 2012, 01:54 am »

Hey everyone, just for fun for anyone interested,
I'll honor the show price
of $900 for a stock built unit for 1 more week!

So you can get in on thid until 9:00P.M. next friday evening!!

Gary

S Clark · « **Reply #7 on:** 20 Oct 2012, 01:58 am »

Did anyone find any deals on cartridges? That's probably my next buy.

sharpsuxx · « **Reply #8 on:** 20 Oct 2012, 02:02 am »

I got a Music Hall cork mat and carbon fiber vinyl brush combined retail of about $170, for $40 down in the Vinyl room in the lobby. Makes my Project turntable sound so much quieter and got a lot more of the little micro dust out of the grooves on my vinyl for a much blacker background.

As far as gear there was a lot of great stuff for great deals. I saw an Arte forma Integrated tube amplifier my buddy Pete was selling, 50 wpc with KT88s for $2600 seemed like a pretty good deal, definetly on my radar.

gld · « **Reply #9 on:** 20 Oct 2012, 02:02 am »

The amplifiers are using a quad of EL-84's and for the front end at the show we were using the russian 6H30-DR
tubes. They have a continuous power rating of 34 watts each and a very large amount of headroom! Also the amps at the show are Danny's amps and of course are full of all Sonicap Platinums and all PRP resistors.
As for the battery I would highly recommend a minimum of 50AH or so and 100 AH would be ideal!
And for sure the proper C-Tek battery charger such as the US-7000 model. We were using a single 100AH battery at the show and everything was on that 1 battery and we managed to go 10 hours or so each day. You can expect 4-5 years from this type of battery.
Gary

sfox7076 · « **Reply #10 on:** 20 Oct 2012, 02:16 am »

Is there a phono pre in the Dodd Preamp?

gld · « **Reply #11 on:** 20 Oct 2012, 02:26 am »

No, But I can build you 1
gary

Jonathon Janusz · « **Reply #12 on:** 20 Oct 2012, 02:52 am »

Not to side track this thread any further on the Dodd gear

, but Gary, you really need to get some info out about that crazy big tube preamp that was on display. I didn't see anything on it on your website.

I know I'm probably alone, but one of the coolest things about it I learned was about the power supply. Folks, the preamp I'm talking about is set up to run on batteries (12V DC if I remember right), but Gary built it a plug-in-the-wall DC power supply, as he described that unit chews through battery power otherwise. I said it at the show, but I really think the idea of having a traditional power supply is an interesting "hook" to get folks into the gear and from there on to the "one true path" of batteries. . .

Jonathon Janusz · « **Reply #13 on:** 20 Oct 2012, 03:00 am »

. . . and to keep this thread on track, the best deal at the show was a tie:

$22 shuttle service to/from the airport.

$12 ($15 with tip) got me a generous 6" grilled chicken parmesan sandwich, drink, and a meal-sized "side salad" of lettuce, tomato, and grilled chicken with a little dressing on the side at the pizza place mis-marked on the hotel's food map about a block as the crow flies heading straight out the front door to the Mariott.

(the cancer awareness t-shirts at the Mexican place across the street for $10 were a close third, though

)

. . . or were you talking about audio gear. . . ?

S Clark · « **Reply #14 on:** 20 Oct 2012, 03:07 pm »

So, out of all the AC members that went to the show, the only bargains were a $900 preamp, an $8k speaker system, a TT mat, and Jonathon's chicken sandwich??? I knew that prices were pretty spendy for most of the rigs, but out of all those vendors surely there were some other good deals?

Triode Pete · « **Reply #15 on:** 20 Oct 2012, 03:24 pm »

Quote from: S Clark on 20 Oct 2012, 03:07 pm

So, out of all the AC members that went to the show, the only bargains were a $900 preamp, an $8k speaker system, a TT mat, and Jonathon's chicken sandwich??? I knew that prices were pretty spendy for most of the rigs, but out of all those vendors surely there were some other good deals?

On the RMAF website, they were advertised specials... http://audiofest.net/2012/Specials.php

I was offering the following show specials in Room 2024 at RMAF... http://audiofest.net/2012/downloads/Special/TriodeSS.pdf

I also had some "demo" cables from Room 2024 at special savings that went very quickly on Sunday evening...

Cheers,
Pete

rollo · « **Reply #16 on:** 20 Oct 2012, 03:29 pm »

Got that right the Dodd stuff was over the top for affordable gear. Noise floor ?? What noise floor. $900 , Don't walk run for your checkbook.
Too bad for me as a dealer he sells direct. We would love to home demo this line of gear, oh my !!!

charles

standub · « **Reply #17 on:** 20 Oct 2012, 03:45 pm »

Quote from: S Clark on 20 Oct 2012, 03:07 pm

So, out of all the AC members that went to the show, the only bargains were a $900 preamp, an $8k speaker system, a TT mat, and Jonathon's chicken sandwich??? I knew that prices were pretty spendy for most of the rigs, but out of all those vendors surely there were some other good deals?

Well Klaus's room was $5900 for pre, amp, speakers, and cables. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

jtwrace · « **Reply #18 on:** 20 Oct 2012, 06:15 pm »

Quote from: S Clark on 20 Oct 2012, 03:07 pm

So, out of all the AC members that went to the show, the only bargains were a $900 preamp, an $8k speaker system, a TT mat, and Jonathon's chicken sandwich??? I knew that prices were pretty spendy for most of the rigs, but out of all those vendors surely there were some other good deals?

I got a free brownie at http://www.woodycreekcafe.com/index.html The manager "Sandy" is super awesome!

S Clark · « **Reply #19 on:** 20 Oct 2012, 11:13 pm »

Quote from: standub on 20 Oct 2012, 03:45 pm

Well Klaus's room was $5900 for pre, amp, speakers, and cables. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

And, although I didn't get to that room, it seemed to well received. 6K for everything except a source- could be a deal indeed.
Ok. now we've got a preamp, a set of speakers, a TT pad, one system, a sandwich, and a brownie.... for probably 50 AC members for three days. Sounds like bargains were hard to come by. Either that, or the vendors really need to do a better job at putting up some signs advertising the RMAF deals.