call Jon Soderberg. Vintage Amp Repair, his expertise is updating old Pass designed amps...certainly it can sound great refurbished...he did my friends Threshold and it sounds superb...
Forté 1A power amplifier.... still good?
I have the chance to buy a (used but mint condition) Forté 1A power amplifier - to try some class A Nelson Pass magic - but I wonder if it still have a valid performance today.
Although this question can only be addressed after a proper listing session and with the right speakers, my main concerns are still of a significant measure.
So I kindly ask to any member to have or had a Forte amplifier, and those with experience and technical knowledge:
- is it easy to repair? I am considering the probability of a need for bias checking and also a recap?
- Are there any known mods suggestions, to improve any design flaw?
- what are the power consumption?
My aim is to pair it with the Thiel CS.5 and probably the Totem Model 1 (both 4 ohm speakers) and the Rogue RP-1 pre amplifier.
Thanks to all.
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Yes. Forte 3 / 1A. Recently upgraded mine. Jon at VAR is local, and we upgraded the main caps to larger ones, new bridge rectifiers, eliminated some spades with direct solder, and installed Cardas speaker binding posts, converted to full Class-A 50 watts, lowered voltage, and turned up the bias. If you buy it, imo don't wait to service and upgrade it, best to just get it done and start using it. Sounds nice! 👍 |
@decooney that is what I suspect, extending the works could totally revitalize the 1A, but at what cost? It certainly must sound excellent:) Do you know if the full conversion to Class A make the power consumption go even higher? Unfortunately I can’t use the service provided by VAR, because I sm in Europe. |
- 8 posts total