[iclark]

A year ago I purchased a bare PC card and assembly instructions from Frank to upgrade my 70i to an Ultimate 70. Now I have to say that I was always happy with my 70i. It was a great little amplifier, but I was seduced by the following statement, quoted from the AVA website:
"We think you will love the Ultimate 70 more than any other tube amp you have ever heard, price not an object. It is just simply lovely sounding. It takes every last bit of grain away from your records and CDs, but takes nothing else away at all. The highs just float. Transparency, detail, definition, range, and dynamics are wonderful. It's got a midrange to die for and bass extension and control you would not believe possible at this power and price. The sound stage is huge, the depth is pure reality, and the emotion of the music is all there, like you have never heard before."

I have been listening to my new amp for a week now and everything Frank says is true, my Aurum Cantus speakers have never sounded so good! I've been going thru my LP's and enjoying the music as never before!

Purchasing just the bare board seemed like a good idea at the time (I am very frugal) but I had a hell of a time purchasing the components as my local vendor did not stock them and many internet companies want you to purchase large quantities or would send me the wrong parts. In the end by some canibilizing my 70i PCB (no going back) and some component subsitution, i.e. Higher cap voltage rating in one case, axial caps instead of radial, big old brown carbon 2W resistors in a few places. Franks instructions are very clear and most of the work was done for me when it was upgraded from a stock Dyna 70 to a 70i. With Franks instruction I built up the board, wired it into the Dyna, installed the tubes and with some trepidation turned it on. No smoke! Set the bias and away we went, pure musical bliss.

I would with out hesitation recommend this upgrade to any one who has a Dyna 70 or 70i. On reflection I should have not been so cheap, and purchased the upgrade kit, it's not really that expensive and you don't get the aggravation of finding the components.

Ian Clark
AVA Ultimate 70
AVA Omega III (Pat-5)
SystemDek II, SME III, Grado Gold
Aurum Cantus, Leisure 2 LE
Original Leonardo CD player
Marantz 7600 SACD

[Wayner]

Welcome to the U70 world!

Wayner 

[gjs_cds]

I'd really like it if AVA could offer a U70 kit from the ground up.  Finding a decent (used) ST-70s to upgrade is a hassle.  And I know there are sites that offer all the individual parts...Although I expect that Frank's already looked into this and found that it's not cost feasible...

As a DIYer, I think it would be a cool project...

[rustneversleeps]

I am married with small kids, so my kit building has been very slow, if I was still single, they would have been done long ago.

Building a 70i or Ultra on a used Dyna chassis is quite costly due to the price inflation of the used Dyna. You would pay up to $450 and above plus about $40.00 shipping for one. If you chose to buy the re-manufactured parts, there would be about $200.00 for a blank chassis, $325.00 for the transformers, $40.00 for the tube sockets, caps, resistors, and other parts runs about $50.00 to a $80.00 (depending on the quantity), cost of the Ultra bare board. Oh, and the tubes, about $90.00.

So the grand total would be approx. $830.00 excluding shipping and labor for the various parts if you build it from the ground up, or about $730.00 (conservatively) excluding labor, if you tried to get a good used Dyna chassis.

I wouldn't do it at neither price personally. I am doing it because due to years of parts accumulation, that still will cost me about $640.00 excluding my labor to build an Ultra.

[avahifi]

We have definitely looked into an Ultimate 70 from the ground up.  We even have a prototype chassis tooled and a couple of prototypes built and running.  Wayne actually has the first one, in exchange for his outstanding metal design work (he works cheep    ). They work great and look nice too.

The issue is that I would have to charge nearly $2000 for a factory wired one given the cost of the hardware, and a do it yourself kit would only save a couple hundred bucks.  I think this would be too high a price for a 30 watt per channel amplifier, no matter how good it is.  I would also have to invest in the cost of enough parts to build 50 of them or so to find out if this is true.  Given the huge amount of time necessary for me to write a new kit manual, it just does not seem to make sense right now, unless a whole lot of you want to line up with orders and firm deposits.

Thanks for all the kind comments.

Frank Van Alstine

[iclark]

I sometimes go to the Audio Show in Montreal and lust after some of the high end audio equipment. But when I see the prices, I quickly cool down. $25000 for a turntable? $2000 for speaker wires? I don't know who buys this stuff.  I guess my point is that $2000 for a AVA Ultimate 70 is not that bad, but I know you have other amps for less. I've never heard them, but I am willing to bet that they perform better than the U70. Am I right?
Have you ever considered out sourcing your production to China? An Ultimate 70 for $500. Designed by AVA, produced in the Peoples Republic of China. Look at Mark Levinston, I think it used to be made in New England. Now PRC.

I am just kidding of course, but the tragidy is that this is what is happening to the North American manufacturing sector. All those jobs are going to China never to return.
I admire you and your team for what you do, high performance equipment for what I consider to be a reasonable price and all made in the USA. Bravo!

Ian

[rustneversleeps]

Here's my opinion.

I've never like the Ultra 70 in a brand new ground up chassis, it doesn't matter what it would look like. I think the Ultra 70 should maintain the Dynaco look.

I think kit amps are hard sell nowaday (when electronics was young, kits sold like hot cake to engineers and technicians) unless you get with the trend. I got sucked into purchasing a Cary Super Amp Signature kit because of claims like oil fill caps, single ended triode, customed made air-core transformer, and a couple of good review from the underground magazine. After I built the amp, it sounded OK, but nothing to brag about. Even that, Cary has terminated their kit business.

Frank, if I was retired now, I would be willing to help you with building the Ultra 70 from the ground up. I can help writing the manual, I've read enough tech manuals that are written for technicians in my career, and know what non-technical people look for in a manual.

Putting the Ultra 70 as a kit, or factory wired in production it needs to be targeted certain audio cult followers.

[Brett Buck]

The issue is that I would have to charge nearly $2000 for a factory wired one given the cost of the hardware, and a do it yourself kit would only save a couple hundred bucks.  I think this would be too high a price for a 30 watt per channel amplifier, no matter how good it is.  I would also have to invest in the cost of enough parts to build 50 of them or so to find out if this is true.  Given the huge amount of time necessary for me to write a new kit manual, it just does not seem to make sense right now, unless a whole lot of you want to line up with orders and firm deposits.

      After finishing rebuilding my father's ST-70 to U70, with good results that I may discuss later, I would have to agree - it's a really good tube amp, if not the best I have ever heard, certainly in the top 3 (and the others were MASSIVE VTLs at absurd cost and totally impractical). At normal listening levels with reasonably efficient speakers it's a no-brainer; hands-down it's the best.  But $2000 is an awful lot of money when you look at the Omega line for ~half the cost and IMHO significantly better performance and much more power. I just got done doing a side-by-side with and Omegastar 260, and IMHO again, the Omegastar blows it out of the water. Buy a clapped-out ST-120 on eBay for $50, get the Omega 170 conversion, and you are probably better off for much less than $1000.
 
     After I mentioned it before, I looked into buying the many available new parts and added up the cost. The estimate by rustneversleeps is definitely in the ballpark, by the time you add up all the little bits. It's almost a wash with buying one of the many available stock ST-70's for around $325-350 and working backwards. Assuming you enjoy the significant amount of work it takes to clean it up and fix the underlying problems with 50 year old kits. Don't underestimate the effort involved in that - if nothing else, be prepared to wear out a Soldapult tip with all the clean-up.

    If i ever had to do it again (and I may, I really like the U70 and wouldn't mind having one for myself), I would certainly buy the parts and build it from scratch instead of starting with an old unit. I really enjoy the building process anyway, and I would pay more just to be sure I had a perfect unit.

   And, just for the record, I would be quite happy to pay the same price for a kit as a pre-built unit because they I could have the enjoyment of doing it myself. There's not that much work in it compared to a lot of stuff I have done (like model airplanes from scratch  -  ~2000 hours). For me, and I suspect others, the point of a kit is not necessarily to save money, it's to *get* the opportunity to assemble it.

     But for the typical Van Alstine customer (i.e. practical people, not audiofool suckers) there's no way that a $2000 U70 makes sense.

      Brett

[mark funk]

China! Other then how Frank's stuff sounds, that is one of the biggest reasons I own Van Alstine, (made in the good old USA!). I don't think that well ever happen! What a rip off made in China and still cost that much cash! It's sad what is happing to US manufacturing, everything going over seas it's not good for any of us! Seams like almost every other day you here of some recall of things made in China!:smoke:

[avahifi_lj]

Hi:

For those kit builders who want an Ultimate 70, but don’t want to mess with Ebay, or dealing with an unknown source for an original Dyna 70:  Check out dyankitparts.com.

From what I can see, Dynakit has licensed several of the original Dynaco tube amplifier designs from Panor (the owner of the Dyanco brand).  They offer both complete kits, and replacement Dynaco parts.  It does not appear that they have changed the original Dyna audio circuits in any of their products.  They, however, do include a tube adapter to allow the use of 6GH8A tubes in the 70.  They also appear to be selling a much beefier ST-70 power transformer.

Based on their prices, you could purchase a Dyna 70 kit and the AVA Ultra upgrade for a bit over $1200.  Not a bad price for a modern amp that has a retro look…

Larry

[mark funk]

Larry, how did you find this site? I though I had all the Dyna parts sites all ready. That is a good deal. I have seen ST-70 go for $700 or $800 on down on ebay and who knows what you are going to get. What if I were to get two of these ST-70 kits with the Ultimate upgrade and an Ultra Bridge, how many watts would that be. How do you think they would sound with a pair of Salk HT-3s? Not that they would replace my 550 but I have always wanted a tube amp and they look cool and I have heard an Ultimate and it sounds cool too! From what I have heard from a lot of these high priced tube amps, two Ultimates and an Ultra Bridge is a really good deal. 

[Brett Buck]

Hi:

For those kit builders who want an Ultimate 70, but don’t want to mess with Ebay, or dealing with an unknown source for an original Dyna 70:  Check out dyankitparts.com.

From what I can see, Dynakit has licensed several of the original Dynaco tube amplifier designs from Panor (the owner of the Dyanco brand).  They offer both complete kits, and replacement Dynaco parts.  It does not appear that they have changed the original Dyna audio circuits in any of their products.  They, however, do include a tube adapter to allow the use of 6GH8A tubes in the 70.  They also appear to be selling a much beefier ST-70 power transformer.

Based on their prices, you could purchase a Dyna 70 kit and the AVA Ultra upgrade for a bit over $1200.  Not a bad price for a modern amp that has a retro look…

   Absolutely. But if you restrict yourself to just buying the individual parts it's more like $850 total. If I do it, that's how I will do it, now that I know the parts that I need from the kit. Actually, with Frank's permission, I may even inventory what is needed from a stock kit to build a U70, and post it.

    I got my replacement power transformer from them, no issues, it just showed up later that week. It's a little bit bigger than the stocker and all the leads are a full 12" long. Completely interchangable, and I ended up using the top cap from the original transformer on the replacement just to it would look right. It runs much cooler than the original. I had to remove the  ST-70 foil label which of course destroyed it, so I am going to get another one from these guys.

   Even gave me a free Dynakitparts baseball cap to impress and confound my friends.

     Brett

[gjs_cds]

Absolutely. But if you restrict yourself to just buying the individual parts it's more like $850 total. If I do it, that's how I will do it, now that I know the parts that I need from the kit. Actually, with Frank's permission, I may even inventory what is needed from a stock kit to build a U70, and post it.

I was going to ask Larry this exact question--is buying the entire kit necessary, or would there be significant savings for buying only the needed parts?

A parts-list, either posted by AVA, or an AVA fan-boy is a great idea.  It would compliment the U70 kit perfectly...

[rdrice]

I was getting ready to order the parts to build an Ultimate 70 from scratch then came across this post:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=20810.msg184289#msg184289

I not sure about the Dynakit output transformers. I haven't looked into the Magnequest transformers.

Craig

[cdorval1]

I share Mark Funk's interest in possibly bridging two Ultimate 70s.  I also use a 550exr to drive my HT3s with terrific results.  But I've also listened at length to the HT3s driven by my Ultimate 70, and it sounds oh so sweet.  There aren't the dynamics of the 550, but music at moderate levels is very involving and appealing with a deep soundstage.

Normally the Ultimate 70 is used in another, smaller room with fairly efficient speakers.  I have another ST70 that I bought many years ago and am thinking about upgrading it.

Has anyone tried the bridged U70s with the HT3s?

Thanks,
Craig

[avahifi]

Driving HT3s with two bridge Ultimate 70s?  Of course I have, works great, plenty of power.  Musicality outstanding.  Only drawback, the whole setup (two complete U70 amps and an Ultra Phase Inverter Bridge) costs more than a single Fet Valve Ultra 550 amp, which does a slightly better job musically yet, and still has gobs more power yet, not that you really need it.

Regards,

Frank Van Alstine

[avahifi_lj]

Hi:

For those interested in the individual Dynakit parts you will need to build an Ultimate 70, here is the list:

Chassis  - $120
Cover - $85
Dyankit label - $7.50
Transformer set (speaker and power) - $285
Transformer bushing set - $1.50
Choke - $11.50
Tube sockets (NOS) - $33.25 ($4.75 x 7)
Bias pots - $13 ($6.50 x 2)
Bias resistors - $7.50 ($3.75 x 2)
Power cord - $7.00
Power switch - $2.25
Fuse holder - $3.75
Five terminal lug strip (replaces the long bias lug strip) - $1.00
Bypass capacitors (for the five terminal lug strip) - $1.50 ($.75 x 2)
Hardware kit – $9.50
Feet - $2.00 (note that we don’t recommend using the original Dyna feet – we have replacements available)
Dyankit baseball cap – Free!

Total cost of the above parts: $591.25

Note that the above list assumes you will be purchasing the Ultimate 70 kit with the jack set.  If you want the original jack set from Dyankit add a several more dollars to the amount listed above.  Also, note that this amount does NOT include the tubes.

The Ultimate 70 upgrade prices are as follows:
The base kit that includes the Ultimate 70 audio board with an improved power supply (including bias supply), two 6GH8 tubes, and the wire you will need to connect the audio board to the other components:  $449

Output tube set (four matched EL34 output tubes):  $93

Rectifier tube: $20

Jack set (covers the stereo/mono switch hole, improves the RCA jack spacing, and includes 5-way binding posts for the speaker connections): $65

One final thing:  For those that don’t want to mess with building the kit, we can also do the entire build of your Dyankit and our Ultimate 70 for $1049. You supply the kit, and we build it!  Our factory wired price “includes” the output tubes, rectifier tube, feet, and jack set.  If you decide on this option, make sure to call Frank a call at 651-330-9871 before ordering the Dyankit.

[gjs_cds]

As soon as I get tenure--this is what I'm doin'.

I can hardly wait...  2009 can't come soon enough!

(Killer "office system", no?)

[iclark]

Futher to Larry's U70 parts list, you might consider this chassis, with a more modern front and back panel, all set for AVA's jack set.
http://store.triodestore.com/st70chassisnew.html

Ian

[Opus Flatus]

I fantisized about building the U70 from scratch, still do. It would be a great project, spouse & brats permitting. I utilized a used modded ST-70 that was modded with the VTA 70 driver board and Curcio ASM-S7U-B Power & bias supply. Those mods were good but I realy enjoy the U70 better. I may use those boards for a scratch build in the future. Nothing is more satisfying than firing up your kit and getting outstanding sound as a reward. Well worth the off again, on again build time process that stretches out to a year plus a few month's.