Is the Eico HF 81 really that good?

i have a HF-81 and yes it sounds great. I have three other tube amps from Cary, Wright Sound Lab and Conrad Johnson and the little EICO gives up nothing. A bargain if you can find one. At 14 watts a side you need efficient speakers.

Larry

hi,

"05-25-06: Lolo

Well,it does sound good in it's original condition. The one reviewed in Stereophile was HEAVILY modified".

From reading the article I believe it was restored and not modified.

Larry

My EICO was rebuilt with new caps and resistors for about 500 dollars.

hi Lolo

from page 159 of June Stereophile,

"The EICO was restored by Sam Kim of Sam's Audio Labs in Montreal,Canada. The work done included replacing the output and filtering capacitors and all out of tolerence resistors, rebuilding the volumn control, rewiring the undercarriage and resoldering every eonnection."

The author goes on but nowhere does he mention modifying the circuit. As far as I can tell from reading this it was a complete restoration.

Yes I have a restored EICO HF-81 and it's a great amp. I paid a total of 600 dollars for it. In spite of JA's measurements it sounds great ( much like SET amps )!! For copmparison I have tube amps from Cary Audio, Wright Sound Labs and Conrad Johnson.

For the price you pay it's unbeatable and can keep up with many " state of the art " modern amps at a fraction of the cost.

All I can say is get one and listen to it, you will be astounded and wonder why you spend so much on the new stuff.

Larry