Cymer Valve Amp

[Midland]

I own a record store in Perth Western Australia and have acquired a Cymer m-150 valve amp and have no knowledge on them. I'm looking for history  and advice on basic set up of this piece.  When powered  all valves do light up. 

Thanks 

 

[muon*]

Always have a load connected to the speaker outputs when powered on, if there is not and a signal is present damage can result. Just in case you are unaware of this, not sure if you have used valve amps before or how much you know.

 

Do ypu know how to check the bias setting on the output tubes?

 

Those GEC output tubes are worth a heap!

@xlr8or

[Honreekea]

It's hand made by Elson Silva in Sydney. He's in his eighties.. I can give you his number if you like to chat with him. 

If it was me I would first check the bias of the amp.

[Honreekea]

I should add: depending upon the transformers he used in the construction ...it could sound quite amazing, when properly biased etc

[Jakeyb77_Redux]

Nice pick up! 
If you Google the model number (I can’t quite read it from the photo) there is a bit of info on the forum.

Apart from the excellent info above connect the input via rca (red to right and left to black outer connections on the back of the amp) 

Connect the speakers to the binding posts negative to black. 
There is two positive (red) binding posts. Most probably 8 and 4 ohm or 8 or 16 ohm.

Best check with the designer or another Cymer owner 

 

 

[Jehuty]

Agree with @muon*. Those GEC KT88 valves worth a small fortune and from the look of it, they could be measured strong. Also, many Elson Silva's valve amps use Bruce Lipscombe's output transformers and they are state of the art. You lucky b4stard!

[xlr8or]

Yes, agree with all previous posts above. The KT88 quad set look to be strong UOS from the GEC stickers. Some of the stickers look to represent NOS. Heavily used GEC KT88's would show a significant degree of browning of the sticker with it peeling off. The quad set alone is probably worth $1.5-1.8K. Great to see external bias ports fitted for manually adjusting the fixed bias for each KT88 in push-pull configuration. Power would be circa 50 watts in UL mode. The 9-pin minis at the rear look like green labelled Sylvania 12AX7's from the early to mid 1970's. The GEC KT88's look like they are from the late 1960’s or very early 1970's. My hunch is the unit was manufactured circa early to mid 1970's. Perhaps contact @Ihearmusic to have the units checked over for any leaking caps etc.

[calypso]

I've owned a couple of Elson's amps and I'd say this one is probably from the early to mid 2000's when he made a bunch of push pull amps  before he turned his focus to high wattage SE amps. The 9-pin driver tubes could be 12ax7's but I recall Elson was a big fan of 12at7's.

[xlr8or]

38 minutes ago, calypso said:

I've owned a couple of Elson's amps and I'd say this one is probably from the early to mid 2000's when he made a bunch of push pull amps  before he turned his focus to high wattage SE amps. The 9-pin driver tubes could be 12ax7's but I recall Elson was a big fan of 12at7's.

 

Thanks for clarifying. My mistake above. Yes, it appears to be possibly 12AT7's and/or 6072A's in use and AB triode mode for the KT88's. It looks similar to these units though but possibly a single power amp as opposed to monos with half the power output?

 

Edited October 4, 2023 by xlr8or

[Bronal]

1 hour ago, xlr8or said:

 

Thanks for clarifying. My mistake above. Yes, it appears to be possibly 12AT7's and/or 6072A's in use and AB triode mode for the KT88's. It looks similar to these units though but possibly a single power amp as opposed to monos with half the power output?

 

 

I owned a Cymer ST-80 stereo amp in a similar configuration to this from 2014 to 2019.  As noted above, it had 12AT7 and 6072A input and driver valves, so I would expect this one to be the same.  My friend the late Patrick Turner advised replacing the 12AT7s with 12BH7s for better bass, but with a little less gain.

 

This one looks a little earlier than mine, I would guess the late 2000s.  The quoted model number is intriguing, as Elson normally identified his amps by their output, and this one would probably put out about 50 Wpc in stereo mode.

 

I would be wary of assessing the GEC KT88s by appearance only.  They could have many hours on them.  However at least it shows that the previous owner was interested in quality valves.

[georgehifi]

4 hours ago, Bronal said:

My friend the late Patrick Turner advised replacing the 12AT7s with 12BH7s for better bass

 

You have to watch out doing this as the 12bh7 uses twice the current as the 12at7, you have to make sure the supply up to it

 

Cheers George 

[xlr8or]

1 hour ago, georgehifi said:

 

You have to watch out doing this as the 12bh7 uses twice the current as the 12at7, you have to make sure the supply up to it

 

Cheers George 

 

Very good point, George. Just adding plate resistance and transconductance values are also different with the former parameter almost double in value for the 12AT7 (10,000 ohm for the 12AT7 versus 5,500 ohm for the 12BH7 at 250v plate voltage). Biasing points are also different (-2v for the 12AT7 versus -10.5v for the 12BH7 at 250v plate voltage).

Edited October 4, 2023 by xlr8or

[Ihearmusic]

I was asked to re-chassis a set of Cymer mono blocks by a customer. He wanted to sell them and make them more presentable since the top plates had sagged really bad on both amps. Well, before stripping down the amps I wanted to be sure that they work.

Cut a long story short, I have not heard anything better then these.

I made an offer, we agreed on a price and they are mine now.

I will post some pics in due course ........

Tubes are 6SN7s driving a pair of 6P3S in push pull.

Edited October 5, 2023 by Ihearmusic

[Mendes]

55 minutes ago, Ihearmusic said:

I was asked to re-chassis a set of Cymer mono blocks by a customer. He wanted to sell them and make them more presentable since the top plates had sagged really bad on both amps. Well, before stripping down the amps I wanted to be sure that they work.

Cut a long story short, I have not heard anything better then these.

I made an offer, we agreed on a price and they are mine now.

I will post some pics in due course ........

Tubes are 6SN7s driving a pair of 6P3S in push pull.

You cheeky bugger, good for you my friend!!

 

[muon*]

1 hour ago, Ihearmusic said:

I was asked to re-chassis a set of Cymer mono blocks by a customer. He wanted to sell them and make them more presentable since the top plates had sagged really bad on both amps. Well, before stripping down the amps I wanted to be sure that they work.

Cut a long story short, I have not heard anything better then these.

I made an offer, we agreed on a price and they are mine now.

I will post some pics in due course ........

Tubes are 6SN7s driving a pair of 6P3S in push pull.

Wonder how it would sound with 6P3S-E

[Jehuty]

Pat Turner once told me that he designed Elson Silva's valve amps so if Pat advised swapping the valves, I would be confident.

[Jehuty]

27 minutes ago, muon* said:

Wonder how it would sound with 6P3S-E

I love my NOS Tung Sol 5881 

[Ihearmusic]

22 minutes ago, Jehuty said:

Pat Turner once told me that he designed Elson Silva's valve amps so if Pat advised swapping the valves, I would be confident.

I have looked over many of Patrick Turner's designs on his web site and I have worked on a few Cymer amps and I can not see much of P T's design ideas in Elson's amps.

P T's designs are highly complex where as Elson's are simpler but for a few odd, not implemented much features.

The biggest difference with Cymer amps compared to others is in the way his OPT are done.

I heard some on here say that OPTs don't matter so much. They are simply wrong. The OPT presents a filter to the signal and only the most carefully designed OPT can pass the widest possible bandwidth. Cymer OPT in my opinion are some of the best there are.

[Bronal]

33 minutes ago, Jehuty said:

Pat Turner once told me that he designed Elson Silva's valve amps so if Pat advised swapping the valves, I would be confident.

 

Pat certainly did all the groundwork on the 13E1 monoblocks that were part of Elson's flagship range (and produced pair himself - see his website) and also wound transformers for Elson in the early days.

[Jehuty]

I looked up my old convo emails with Pat to clarify and found that he designed Elson's OPTs since 2002, following the retirements of Bruce and John. I believe that he would also add inputs on the overall design of the valve amps to ensure the his OPTs were run at their best operating points.

 

Pat would only sell his products when the properties complied with what he would design himself.  Hence, his pile of unsold (world class) trannies. I wonder who inherited those irons....at one stage he did mention about disposing or scrapping 

[Ihearmusic]

I wonder how many members on this forum own a Turner amplifier?
I personally have never come across one and would love to hear one.

 

[georgehifi]

8 hours ago, Jehuty said:

Pat Turner once told me that he designed Elson Silva's valve amps so if Pat advised swapping the valves, I would be confident.

I know Elson very well, when his amps were at their peak he did his own design amps and Bruce did the trannies, I don't think Patrick who I also knew has anything to do with them. He may have done after Bruce stopped doing them, they never seemed as good, but Bruce was the "trannie god", Elson used to say Bruce's transformer wiring interleaving was beautiful to behold, "like a tall blonde with super platted hair."

 

7 hours ago, Jehuty said:

I looked up my old convo emails with Pat to clarify and found that he designed Elson's OPTs since 2002, following the retirements of Bruce and John.

Yes that's what happened, but the transformer "god" was Bruce, funny thing was though, he was not an audiophile, just a transformer "god", Elson used to say that you never talk hifi BS with him, he'd kick you out.

 

Cheers George

Edited October 5, 2023 by georgehifi

[La scala]

Stefan , looking forward to hearing your Cymers. 
They have me rather intrigued , and good to see such knowledgeable responses.

Look forward in reading more on this topic.

 

Recently purchased a pair of JC10 mono blocks , are retrofitted with Elson’s Southern Star Trannies , however don’t have any useful info at all on these amps !!

Was told the Southern Star have Silver wire Transformers , amps were made in Singapore and only 2 pairs ever made ! 
Any info be of interest , Thanks all Volker

 

[georgehifi]

3 hours ago, La scala said:

Was told the Southern Star have Silver wire Transformers , amps were made in Singapore and only 2 pairs ever made ! 
Any info be of interest , Thanks all Volker

I remember Elson talking about these Southern Star trannies years ago, I always thought they came from Bruce, (could be wrong on that) they remind me of the beautiful built British made MICHAELSON & AUSTIN TVA-1.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b3/c5/49/b3c5496912aa1ebf2c8e0701d1db778e.jpg

 

These are the trannies I made over 10 years ago probably more like 15, from a pair of personal wound Interleaved bobbins Bruce made for himself, I managed to prize them away from him, and built my own massive double C-core, iron and frames were imported from Israel, ("Elson said they had the best material for those cores?????") and put them in these Rogue monoblocks, they were magnificent sounding.

https://soundmediagroupau.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/monthly_2023_06/IMG_20230611_092649653.jpg.a91aedaee48d65e44b79b1ebed1effbb.jpg

 

Then I realized I was getting closer and closer to the sound of big high Class-A biased solid state amps which I went back over to, and funny it's where I started at back in the mid 70's 

https://www.passdiy.com/project/amplifiers/construct-a-class-a-amplifier

 

Cheers George

   

Edited October 6, 2023 by georgehifi

[Honreekea]

I used to photograph Elson's amps for him. .  The first Southern Stars I recorded was about 2015.