Bottlehead Repro Tube Head Amp vs Cello/King

Steve Williams said:

Many of us here are actively involved with reel to reel as well as subscribing to The Tape Project. I am a tube guy and as a result would like to know what if any sonic differences are noticed in the 2 units. I am certain that both Myles and Mike Lavigne have heard both in their systems and could give us an excellent commentary.

Charles King is also a member here and hopefully will chime in as well. Charles if you read this, one more question....have you ever considered doing a tube version of your unit

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rsbeck said:

test.

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Steve Williams said:

Mike, did you use the Cello/King as a phonostage (which I gather it can do) or was your evaluation based on listening only to tape

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mep said:

I am doing something that is a little unorthodox to say the least, but it works. I am taking the output from my Otari MX-55 via XLR cables straight into my pair of Ampex 350 repros. The Ampex 350s were designed to for the ouput of tape heads that had very high output compared to modern tape heads. The combination works great together. I wouldn't trade my pair of Ampex 350s for the Bottlehead repro for all the tea in China (or even England). The Ampex 350s are pure dual mono tube repros with outboard tube power supplies and they sound fantastic. The Bottlehead repro has some tubes, but shares a common SS power supply. Plus it has no meters. I just don't see the value for the money they are charging. Factor in the complaints people have about the problems they experienced when using them and you have to raise some eyebrows. Another plus for the Ampex 350s is they really look cool too IMO. One of these days I will own a Studer deck and will see if I can pull the same stunt that I did with the Otari MX-55 by feeding the output straight into the 350s without any bad side effects. Of course it would be cool to modify the 350s so they could take modern tape heads straight in with the proper gain and bypass the SS output stage of the deck being used. For the here and now, the combo I am using sounds so good I don't want to mess with it. The sad thing is that I believe most people who are buying 350s and driving the price up over time are using them mainly as microphone preamps and not as tape repro units. I wish more people with good decks could hear them and share their feelings about them. I don't know if we will ever see another pair of pure tube dual mono repros that come close to the sound of the Ampex 350s.



Mark

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mep said:

I am doing something that is a little unorthodox to say the least, but it works. I am taking the output from my Otari MX-55 via XLR cables straight into my pair of Ampex 350 repros. The Ampex 350s were designed to for the ouput of tape heads that had very high output compared to modern tape heads. The combination works great together. I wouldn't trade my pair of Ampex 350s for the Bottlehead repro for all the tea in China (or even England). The Ampex 350s are pure dual mono tube repros with outboard tube power supplies and they sound fantastic. The Bottlehead repro has some tubes, but shares a common SS power supply. Plus it has no meters. I just don't see the value for the money they are charging. Factor in the complaints people have about the problems they experienced when using them and you have to raise some eyebrows. Another plus for the Ampex 350s is they really look cool too IMO. One of these days I will own a Studer deck and will see if I can pull the same stunt that I did with the Otari MX-55 by feeding the output straight into the 350s without any bad side effects. Of course it would be cool to modify the 350s so they could take modern tape heads straight in with the proper gain and bypass the SS output stage of the deck being used. For the here and now, the combo I am using sounds so good I don't want to mess with it. The sad thing is that I believe most people who are buying 350s and driving the price up over time are using them mainly as microphone preamps and not as tape repro units. I wish more people with good decks could hear them and share their feelings about them. I don't know if we will ever see another pair of pure tube dual mono repros that come close to the sound of the Ampex 350s.



Mark

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mep said:

Mike-Your questions require a thoughtful response and I am also going to attempt to read between the lines and answer questions that you didn't come out and ask directly. No, I have not had a chance to hear either the Bottlehead repro or the Manley unit. I think the unasked question here is how I could possibly state that I wouldn't trade my Amex 350s for the Bottlehead repro for all the tea in China if I never heard it. And that is a fair question to ask even if it was hidden between the lines. It is possible that if I heard the Bottlehead repro I would want to take a sledgehammer to my Ampex 350s. It may also be true that I would want to take a sledgehammer to the Bottlehead unit. I would love to hear the Bottlehead repro and make that decision. Somehow I don't think that Bottlehead has the engineering expertise working for them that Ampex had at their disposal. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I think the Bottlehead repro was the first upscale product they ever brought to market and it was/is also their most expensive product. It is not available in a kit that comes with unfinished alder wood that you get to glue and clamp together like their other gear. How many people here are using Bottlehead electronics in their system with the exception of the repro? I briefly owned their Foreplay preamp which I bought new with all of the add-ons like the sweet whispers volume pots and the CSS boards to see what all of the fuss was about. Sorry to say the preamp was a joke-an inexpensive joke, but a joke nonetheless. I am not a fan of tying transistors to tubes. I believe David Manley referred to them as doo-dads tied to the tubes. I think we can all agree that David Manley knows a thing or two about tube design. Michael Elliott from Counterpoint also went through a period where he was using transistors tied to tubes in order to increase gain and he had a change of heart. If you send an SA-3000, SA-5000, or an SA-9 back to Michael for an upgrade, the first thing he does is remove those transistors from the tube stage. I believe that the repro uses the CSS boards as well.

I happen to live in the middle of nowhere with the closest "big" city being Bloomington, IN. To my knowledge, there are no audio clubs in Bloomington nor are there any high-end dealers. I am kind of a one-man-band where I live and therefore I don't get exposed to the amount of gear that many of you do on a routine basis. I wish it wasn't so.

As for meters, I do believe they have value other than a coolness factor to look at. Meters have a story to tell you about what is going on with each tape you play. I use the meters to dial in each tape-both in recording and playback. I need them for setting the record levels when I make a tape and I need them for setting the output levels when I play a tape back. Meters will also tell you what kind of dynamic range was recorded on tapes you play. As for whether or not the Cello/King sounds better than the stock Studer electronics because it has no meters I certainly couldn't say. I would like to think that the Cello/King sounds better than the stock Studer electronics because it is a superior design.

As for your last comment, I totally agree that it would be better and more pure if I was coming straight from the playback head into my Ampex 350s. Until I can make this happen, it still sounds outstanding.

In summary, I want to be clear that I am not trying to state that the Ampex 350s are the best repros ever made. I certainly don’t know that. All I am saying is that they sound outstanding and I am glad to own them. I don’t think it would be a stretch to say that some of the greatest songs ever recorded were recorded through Ampex 350s.

Mark

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Steve Williams said:

Bruce are you going to switch yours allowing you to bypass but still preserve original circuitry or just bypass

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John Brooks said:

Rich Brown brought the Bottlehead Repro and Cello to my house. We ran them through a Technics RS1500 with Flux Magnetics extended response heads, Bottlehead tape path upgrades, and Cardas wired direct off the heads. I had the Bottlehead Eros so we got to compare all three. The Eros was upgraded with NOS vintage tubes, as was the Repro (i.e., both tricked out). To it's credit, the $799 Eros sounded 80-90% as good as the other $4K+ machines. However, with the Flux heads, the combo was about 10 db shy of needed gain. I had to crank my preamp up to 3-4-5 o'clock (my TT is at 12 o'clock and the Studer at 10-11 o'clock). The Repro rectified that situation and had as a result more bass slam. The Cello was very close in performance to the Repro. The differences between them I would ascribe to SS versus tube nuances for the most part.

FWIW, I explored options for getting more gainout of the Eros and finally threw in the towel and sold it and the Technics, replacing both with an Otari MTR-15 console with meter bridge. I may, in the future, still explore external tape head preamp options (K&K, Manley), but for now am very happy with the performance of the Otari.

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keitht said:

Hello, I currently own the Cello phono/tape preamp and can say it is the best tape head preamp I have ever heard. I also like tubes and don't own the Bottlhead but believe the Cello sounds better from what I have heard at CES. As far as the phono stage I can say it is close or equal to the $30,000 Boulder 2008 phono stage of which I had one and sold. I also own a $35,000+ Tidal phono preamp and only this sounds slightly better than the Cello but it cost 10 times as much. Charles has made me a variable EQ phono stage specifically requested by me to play and archive 78's. I have only used it for about an hour but so far it is fantastic and worth every penny if you own 78's or LP's pre 1955. I am a dealer and have a very very expensive system over $500,000 and can say that without a doubt the Cello fits right in with equipment 10 times as expensive.

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