Tony L
Administrator
The Leak gods have been smiling on me lately as not only did I find an almost certainly NOS Stereo 20 recently (see my lengthy Stereo 20 thread) but I’ve also over the past month or so landed a first version champagne colour Troughline tuner (mono), a Point One preamp (mono), and today a later-look Varislope Stereo pre and the real star this little TL-12 Plus mono power amp:
I landed it for £200 with the slightly tatty and far less collectable black/silver Varislope pre. As is often the case it has scrubbed up better than I could have ever hoped on first look (it was filthy) and it looks unmolested with no sign of any work let alone the nasty botches that blight so much Leak kit these days:
Not decided what to do with it yet, I’ll likely keep an eye out for a similar condition and similar colour (IIRC this is the first and most collectable colour) little friend for it and then restore them as a pair.
Has anyone any view as to how a pair of these compares sonically to the Stereo 20? (stock spec, I’ve no interest in butchering anything!). It looks like the same output transformer as the Stereo 20 (I assume the first version) but it has an EF86 and ECC81 ahead of the EL84s rather than the ECC83s in the Stereo 20, so I assume it sounds rather different.
Blatant plug for Servisol Foam Cleansor 30, it really is magic in a can.
April 2021 Edit: I’ll add a proper safety disclaimer to this thread:
I am not an electronics expert and this thread details the full electrical restoration of my amps. It is provided for entertainment and in no way should be viewed as more than that. Valve amplifiers contain really high voltages that can kill and you shouldn’t embark on a project such as this unless you fully understand which bits are live, that capacitors can hold high voltage long after the power has been disconnected etc. I have attempted to document what I know and what I have learned as accurately as I can, but this is not an instruction manual and should certainly not be viewed as one!
I landed it for £200 with the slightly tatty and far less collectable black/silver Varislope pre. As is often the case it has scrubbed up better than I could have ever hoped on first look (it was filthy) and it looks unmolested with no sign of any work let alone the nasty botches that blight so much Leak kit these days:
Not decided what to do with it yet, I’ll likely keep an eye out for a similar condition and similar colour (IIRC this is the first and most collectable colour) little friend for it and then restore them as a pair.
Has anyone any view as to how a pair of these compares sonically to the Stereo 20? (stock spec, I’ve no interest in butchering anything!). It looks like the same output transformer as the Stereo 20 (I assume the first version) but it has an EF86 and ECC81 ahead of the EL84s rather than the ECC83s in the Stereo 20, so I assume it sounds rather different.
Blatant plug for Servisol Foam Cleansor 30, it really is magic in a can.
April 2021 Edit: I’ll add a proper safety disclaimer to this thread:
I am not an electronics expert and this thread details the full electrical restoration of my amps. It is provided for entertainment and in no way should be viewed as more than that. Valve amplifiers contain really high voltages that can kill and you shouldn’t embark on a project such as this unless you fully understand which bits are live, that capacitors can hold high voltage long after the power has been disconnected etc. I have attempted to document what I know and what I have learned as accurately as I can, but this is not an instruction manual and should certainly not be viewed as one!
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