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Bottlehead vs. Audionote Kits

Recently completed my second Bottlehead kit. I've now built a Crack headphone amp with Speedball upgrade and an Eros phono-pre. I couldn't be more delighted with both. First the challenge and fun of building has been a truly invigorating experience. The on going fun of tube rolling is great. Finally, both kits just sound terrific. I believe that I'm getting reasonable SOTA at a bargain price.

So here's my question. I'm thinking about building a SET amp for my second system. Do I go with Bottlehead Stereomour II with 3 1/2 Watts at $1,429.00 or Audio Note Kit 1 with 8 Watts at $2,325.00?

Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated. Would love to hear from folks who've built or heard either.

Thanks in advance,

Alan

adeep42

Showing 1 response by charles1dad

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charles1dad
10,250 posts
 
Both companies have earned very good reputations for support and value as well as good sound. The Audio Note is more expensive and for good reasons in my opinion. The chassis is larger and heavier to accommodate the big and high quality transformers (a crucial consideration for SET amplifiers). Power supplies are robust and parts quality is high. I have nothing negative to say regarding BH but I believe that the extra cost of the AN Kit is money well spent.

If you can afford the AN Kit I’d go for it and get upgraded coupling capacitors. In the long term these quality parts pay for themselves and yield superb sound. Their 300b SET amplifier is a true high end product. Just as Roxy accurately described  😊.
Charles,
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