[Steve]

A couple of thoughts come quickly to mind Mark.

1) With dual mono preamps, you don't need the dsc-1, as long
as you have volume controls for each channel.
However, if you wish to use a loudness control, or wish to blend
the channels in some way, that is a different story. That you will have
to decide.

2) The statements concerning completely distortionless, does not change
the signal in any way, is complete nonsense. It will affect the quality of the
signal by both the high impedances, and stray capacitances etc involved and the parts quality.
However, it is kinda neat as I remember as a kid. Again it is up to you.

There could be differences in our goals which I think should be considered as well.

I think you could always resell the unit, and not lose money or much money,
if you did not like the results Mark. If nothing else, I think it provides a neat
experiment for your knowledge bank/future reference.

Cheers.

[Mark Korda]

Hi Steve,I did not know what you ment about distortionless in your reply.Any way,there was this guy Bill Thomas who was the moderator for the Vintage catagory.He would strip down a Dynaco amp,preamp,and show every little thing in these great pictures,taken outside in the sun,and explain the rebuild process.He passed away about a year ago,but his articles on rebuilds are still there.He got me inspired,as did that show on cable American Restoration.My 2 Dyna mono preamps are not worth anything,but their sitting looking at me in my pile of projects saying...do something.I made a passive transformer preamp project out of 1 PAM chassis,but felt guilty for gutting out that 1958 circuitry,when the world was really rockin.I'm really trying to re self study myself in those Navy electronic study books from 1954 on tubes,and this seems like a project I have to do.I have found the replacement electrolytic caps for these on the computer.Check out Bill Thomas on vintage,then you will know what I'm trying to do,check out the other site Dyna-PAM,I got a couple pics...thanks for your help,keep in touch....Mark.

[Steve]

Hi Steve,I did not know what you ment about distortionless in your reply.Any way,there was this guy Bill Thomas who was the moderator for the Vintage catagory.He would strip down a Dynaco amp,preamp,and show every little thing in these great pictures,taken outside in the sun,and explain the rebuild process.He passed away about a year ago,but his articles on rebuilds are still there.He got me inspired,as did that show on cable American Restoration.My 2 Dyna mono preamps are not worth anything,but their sitting looking at me in my pile of projects saying...do something.I made a passive transformer preamp project out of 1 PAM chassis,but felt guilty for gutting out that 1958 circuitry,when the world was really rockin.I'm really trying to re self study myself in those Navy electronic study books from 1954 on tubes,and this seems like a project I have to do.I have found the replacement electrolytic caps for these on the computer.Check out Bill Thomas on vintage,then you will know what I'm trying to do,check out the other site Dyna-PAM,I got a couple pics...thanks for your help,keep in touch....Mark.

Oh, sorry Mark. My distortion comment was referring to the instruction manual comments, first paragraph at:
http://www.the-planet.org/dynaco/Preamplifier/DSC1.pdf

stating " the dsc-1 "does not change the signal in any way", and....... is "completely distortionless"....   

Yes, rebuilding is fun and good for learning. Did alot of that with Coronado, Crosley radios, jute box amps etc back in the early 60s. Sounds like Bill has performed alot of valuable work and helped others alot. Sorry to hear about Bill passing away.

Cheers.

[Mark Korda]

Hi Steve,thanks for writing back.You really did your homework!I don't know why Dynaco came out with that box.The Dyna PAM-1's have a seperate loudness control on each unit and adjusting balance could be done using both volume controls and your ears.I noticed the DCS-1 had some sort of spacial control.I have that on a modded PAS-2.My feeling was to eliminate that with a PAM,no DCS-1,getting rid of the loudness,and the tone controls,and using a real good 500k pot I might have some thing special.By the way,my favorite preamp,not being used yet,was called the Ace (Zero Distortion) Preamp(1974).It has no balance controls,just 2 slider pots,that when all lubed or cleaned up work really good for me.I can't find very much on the computer about it except in High Fidelity mag,1974.At the time,Audiogram called it the 3rd best preamp in the world,99 bucks kit.I think this must have been one of the first passive preamps for high gain sections,but it has a phono section too.I wish I could send you a picture,I'll get my camera out soon.I won't give up on this project because guys like you keep helping me with it which makes this Audio Circle so helpfull and more watched than you know what thats all over the computer.Thanks tons Steve!...keep in touch....Mark Korda