5 kits available

[jrebman]

Wow, I can't believe these last 4 kits!s haven't been scooped up!

I wouldn't worry about the availability of the tubes, I've bought several pairs in the last week.

I still probably think this is still the best deal in quality audio that there is.

I have a really good non-bottlehead amp but I'm betting the se.x. Kit will be getting more than it's fair share of playtime.

I was originally torn between the stereomour II and the s.e.x. And I went for the s.e.x., and not because it's at the end of it's run, but I think it's an amp that suits my listening preferences better and as I remember, has that listen all day quality that I must have in my system.

What are you waiting for?

-- Jim

 

[Paul Joppa]

Thanks for those comments, Jim. Despite the fact that the Paramount/Stereomount is my baby (my first Bottlehead design), I still have an enormous fondness for the SEX amp. I use mine every day.

A year or so ago, we were talking of a 20th anniversary edition of the original S.E.X., which in early 1996 was first offered for purchase from Electronic Tonalities (which later became Bottlehead). It was to incorporate all the best mods, while still looking like the original. The dearth of 6DN7s pretty much killed that; even a modest run of 10 kits would need 40 tubes.

 

[kgoss]

I agree with Jim, the SEX is an amazing amp. When I bought my version 2.0 amp years ago I believe it was the only headphone amp kit offered.  This was the entry level offering from Bottlehead at the time, but the finished amp is way above entry level in my opinion. I liked it so much I upgraded it to Magnequest full nickel as my final mod after several other upgrades.  I use mine almost daily as a desktop amp at my home computer and I still have not worn out a pair of those rugged 6DN7 tubes.  I have the best of both worlds with a wonderful headphone amp plus a wonderful speaker amp driving a pair of Blumenstein Mini speakers. The sound either way is sublime and never fatiguing. I believe I remember reading one of Paul Joppa's comments that "the SEX is the poor man's 45 amp".  And I totally agree. I'm currently building a Kaiju for the main system but I will always love my SEX amp.

 

[johnsonad]

Thanks for those comments, Jim. Despite the fact that the Paramount/Stereomount is my baby (my first Bottlehead design), I still have an enormous fondness for the SEX amp. I use mine every day.

A year or so ago, we were talking of a 20th anniversary edition of the original S.E.X., which in early 1996 was first offered for purchase from Electronic Tonalities (which later became Bottlehead). It was to incorporate all the best mods, while still looking like the original. The dearth of 6DN7s pretty much killed that; even a modest run of 10 kits would need 40 tubes.

Paul, now that it will be out of production, would you all consider making that 20th Anniversay schematic available to us so that we could make the mods on our own? 

I love my SEX amp and it's scheduled for some mods after the next headphone amp I'm working on is completed.

 

[Paul Joppa]

Paul, now that it will be out of production, would you all consider making that 20th Anniversay schematic available to us so that we could make the mods on our own? 

I love my SEX amp and it's scheduled for some mods after the next headphone amp I'm working on is completed.

The original S.E.X. amps were monoblocks using 6DN7s per channel, with the power sections paralleled and the driver sections in a variant mu follower. Thus a modern SEX amp could be converted to a monaural original - you'd need two of the modern amps for stereo.

We will talk about what to do with the design ideas in the near future.

 

[jrebman]

As I said, I only had mine on loan for a short time and paired with a pair of Tonian TL-D1s and using a Wavelength Proton to feed the amp -- What a wonderful sound and with dynamics that were impossibly amazing for 2 watts. Those Tonians were another one of those speakers I woefully regret selling, and I recently looked for another pair and it seems they are out of production.

That was such a simple system yet sounded so amazingly good. I'm hoping to get back to that level of sound (but obviously different) with my current setup which is very similar except for the addition of a better DAC, Aries mini streamer/server, and a Orca deluxe / dungeness Max stack, and balanced power.

Sometimes it takes a long time and far too much money to figure out that a basic, simple system can sound out-of-this-world sound. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

Paul, your babies are also wonderful amps but I'm trying to live within a much smaller audio budget these days, and in that regard, the s.e.x. Just floated to the top.

-- Jim