EAR 834P - Sale or try and repair...

I would fix it or find someone to work on it.  Maybe change the resistor and rectifier and drop in a new set of tubes and see what you got.

IMO, worth fixing.

For reference, there's a used working black face EAR here locally going for $750.

@bigkidz 

Which Vcaps do you like?

Right now I'm using a mix of Miflex and Mundorf on my clone.

@abp689 

I have a EAR clone and I think it competes up to the 2k range.  It's been a while but I would say it's close to something like a Tavish Adagio, at least on the MM side (I run my clone with a SUT, as I did the Adagio).

I did compare the clone to a Darlington Labs MP-7 and the MP-7 was pretty damn close to the Adagio.

When my Modwright was back at mother ship for upgrades, I didn't notice any major drop off with the clone.  I heard the clone is pretty close to the real deal so I would expect one would need to go into at least the $2k range to do better.

I've been eyeballing that one for sale locally, but last thing I need is another phono stage!

If you send it out, do the upgrades or at least upgrade the caps.  If you are running a MC cart, maybe try it with a good SUT.

@abp689 

I have Hashimoto HM-7s and a James Audio SUT.  I also had some Ned Clayton built Cinemag 1254s and they were nice too.

If you google EAR upgrades you'll get a boat load.  Minimum I would do the caps.