petieboy Posted December 27, 2012 Posted December 27, 2012 Rare opportunity! Especially for Aussies. This is definitely one of the hardest decisions to sell out of any gear I have owned! Space Tech Labs Balanced Tube Buffer model 103 in solid Oak $775. Space Tech Labs Tube buffer 104 in black $500. Selling both for $1200 including stock tubes plus shipping. Retail is US2300 for the pair(stock) with no tubes plus shipping. This STL gear for sale here are identical to the ones shown on STL site. Solid Oak is usually most desirable but also most expensive out of all STL chassis options. Great condition. Functions as new. Hardly ever seen on the used market! This is for a obvious reason. I am guessing I will go back to tubes one day and STL will be first on my list! This particular Buffer has been upgraded by STL with large NOS Western Electric PIO caps and brand new beefier transformer. I requested soldering with Cardas Quad Eutectic. All point to point wiring with no circuit boards. Currently 230V but can be easily converted to 120. Buffer uses 4 tubes. Rectifier uses 2 tubes in 2.5V half wave or 5V full wave selectable. Both have IEC outlets for after market PC. Buff-103 comes with the $200 optional "level 1" super drive upgrade which lowers impedance even more and gives 103 more drive and even better sonics. - check STL website for more details. Buf is fully balanced in/out plus RCA in/out. For those who have never heard of `Albert` from Space Tech Labs(Canada) here is a little info. Albert was first few ones who can design and make industrial production robots and automatic computer control test equipment with artificial intelligence. He has his own factory to do that and sell those gears to production facilities of SONY, PHILIPS...etc in Mainland China. He has worked as an engineer in the whole seller of Mark Levinson, Audio Research , JBL and Krell many years ago, and knows every bit of their design and sound. Al is one of THE guys to chat to about tube gear and tubes! Quite the impressive individual! Buff-103 virtually turns any source into big tube output stage! I have had many preamps, a couple even retailing upwards of $15,000, in my system over the years and none have been able to beat this STL buffer 103 with 104 rectifier. Especially with high quality PC and IC`s. I nearly purchased a STL preamp but did not see the point as I do not have much use for a pre and found this buffer sounded better than any pre I have ever heard in my system when between source and amps.. Most of the evaluations were done using Accuphase DP-75V (volume control) and fully upgraded Spectron mono blocks with Bybees and CUTF V-caps etc. I found this STL gear to work almost as well with a quality seperate preamp in the chain. I have heard these units connected to a Lenehan PDX DAC/pre(I own Lenehan ML3 Ref with outboard Xovers) and the result was quite wonderful similar as the Accuphase. Great results as well with a Bryston and Berkeley Alpha. Actually I am yet to hear a source not improved in every way with this STL buffer and rectifier. Well actually only exception is a SS DAC and computer source system from a relatively unknown in the Netherlands costing me over 10K which is my new source atm. Thsi new source did not seem to synergise all that well plus I slightly prefer this new setup over any other with or without buffer. So I am sticking with it for now and decided to sell this STL gear also to fund new Xover parts. Other than this unique circumstance I am yet to experience or hear of anyone not preferring a STL buffer in the chain. Especially with STL add on rectifier. STL buffer103 does not restrict bass and dynamics like many other tube gear and allow listener to hear the full positives/flavor of favorite tubes yet at the same time they do not harm or greatly affect the typical house sound of your precious source. Its more about harmonic bloom air richness and micro details with this gear. I do find dynamics to actually improve as well along with a wider higher stage more dimensional. All this with superb liquidity and smoothness. I have used this buffer running balanced cables along with two RCA cables to dual subs all at once with great effect. IMO STL make some of the very best buffers and rectifiers out there. I have researched many and tried various others others in the past. This buffer can be used separately with 5U4G rectifier tube or optimally with its partnering STR-104 rectifier. 103 buffer accepts many different type large and medium tubes such as EL34/KT66/6G6G/KT88/6550/6V6G/6Y6G/6K6G etc. 104 rectifier accepts many different type large and medium tubes such as 866A, 83, 80, 280, 283, 2A3, 300B, 50, 3B28, 1616 and many more. Tubes included with this sale are RCA 2x 6G6, RCA 2x 6L6, Tungsol smoked 2x 6V6GT plus Rogers 5U4G for buffer. RCA 1616 and Cetron 3B28 for rectifier. All these cheaper tubes were recommended to me by Albert(STL) and they work very nicely with good life remaining. I do have some rare NOS tubes available, which offer more quality, as a nice upgrade. I found that quality tubes really shine with this gear! One of the points of this buffer is so you can really hear unique tube sound signature of selected tubes in your system, without any degradation, with only gains all round. Tubes available for buffer nclude the very musical lush Genalex KT66 1970`s clear glass(IMO the best KT66), various 6V6GT including 4 pairs very rare GE silver plate(1949 - 1951) which is a more neutral tube with some of the best extended airy sweet shimmering treble and tight bass I have heard from a tube. If you are familiar with 12A type signal tubes then the GE silverplate sounds similar to my favorite little signal tube the Mazda 12AU7WE silverplate 6189 3mica but of course 6V6 is a better bigger tube. The above tube combo was the very best I could come up with, in the buffer, out of many many other tube variations/combinations. Many long nights. 104 Rectifier tubes = Al`s very impressive modified "secret weapon" tube is the best tube I found for the 104 rectifier. It is very large tube with bright tube glow similar to 10W light bulb and produces some of the best midrange ever heard from a tube with minimal restriction top and bottom. This was easily the best tube for the rectifier I have tried and really is a fantastic sounding unique place to use a 300B like tube IMO. Great for all types of music surprisingly. Especially vocals. It actually is a WE705 which has very similar characteristics of the famous WE300B tubes which can go for over 2K on Ebay these days if NOS. Albert calls his WE705 mod tubes his "secret weapon". I can easily see why - they sound that good! My good friend brought his genuine NOS WE300B tubes over to compare. Albert`s WE705 mod tubes have better extension and similar famous WE300B midrange but a bit more articulate and airy. Al uses CNC milling to modify pin configuration of tube. NOS WE705 tube itself is rather rare but inexpensive. It is the whole pin change mod which brings the final total cost to $250 each direct from Al. I have a pair available at $300 or $160 each. less than 300 hours. Great value tubes considering typical NOS WE 300B price. Neat trick too. I don`t know any one else that does/offers this special tube mod except Al at STL. I also have a couple pairs of rare Svetlana SV572. Nice tube for rectifier too. Colder sound compared to WE705. I have a few others such as Sylvania 80 type etc. I already sold most the other tubes I rejected a while ago. Only kept the best as well as original stock tubes. I went through a fair bit expense time and effort finding my favorite tube combinations. It was well worth it though. Fun too. There are many other rare NOS signal tube pairs available such as AU7,AT7,ecc88 types etc I am very fussy with my tubes so they are all as good as you can find. Most have merely 2-300 hours on them. Tubes werre purchased from places such as STL, Brent Jessee and a very trusty elderly audiophile friend tube collector. Feel free to msg me for any details. Pics on request.
petieboy Posted December 28, 2012 Author Posted December 28, 2012 This gear was SOLD this morning. Thanks for looking everyone. Thanks to all those who msged me as well. What a busy morning. Sorry for those who missed out! Pete
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