Above, the Dynaco line-up circa 1974: A10, A-25, A-35, and A-50 speaker systems; Stereo 120, Stereo 50, and Stereo 400 amps, PAT-4 Preamp, FM-5 and AF-6 tuners, SCA-80Q integrated amp. Dynaco components were offered pre-assembled (and badged as Dynaco), and in kit form (badged Dynakit). The speakers, AFAIK, were all pre- assembled. Dynaco had an earlier line of tube components that are more sought-after, but you can find plenty of all types out there… the speakers are not as common but apparently not-too-bad.
9 replies on “Yard Sale Speakers Spotter’s Guide: 3: Dynaco”
The A-25 still has its adherents and isn’t too awful bad. The Stereo 400 is a candidate to make into a halfway decent power amp, too, but the rest of this stuff should be fed into the nearest SSI Shredder. The Stereo 80 and 120 are single rail transistor amplifiers with output caps and are usable mostly as a parts source to build bench DC supplies or the power transformer can be used for various projects. Sonically they suck, they suck, they suck as do all single end supply solid state amps except Altecs with output transformers, those make surprisingly good guitar power amps with the right preamp. Don’t butcher it, run it stock and build an Alembic F2B clone (easy build) to feed it.
Toob Dynacos are a whole different story. Yes, you can make a decent amp out of a ST70, but you might as well start from scratch since those transformers are old and prone to fail.
Just found your site via an article linked by TapeOp on Facebook. Have spent several hours perusing…
Never owned any Dynaco speakers (although I have heard A25s and liked them OK.) But I have a Stereo 410 amp in daily use, bought for $100 and vacuumed out a lot of spiderwebs in ’89, the power switch froze a few years after but I had a similar part minus the breaker, eventually disconnected the fan because it was noisy and the unit never got too hot in home service. I’ve tried several amps since but keep going back to this one for its low end solidity, the music just seems to come right out of the ground in a way nothing else quite matches. Oh, also have a Stereo 150 that I dearly love, not quite as gutsy but remarkable with smaller speakers, currently needs some TLC but I hope to fix and restore to service at some (undefined) future time. That one has a really sweet sound; for a while I used it in a biamp system with the 410, killer setup.
I owned a pair ea. of Dynaco A-50’s & A-25’s some 40 yrs ago and ran them through a Marantz 1200 with the music sourced from a Dual 1229 with a Shure V15 cartridge……. You know, the system you wish you still had! Well, I still have Marantz power, (several from the 70’s) but am thinking after all these years I would like to find and get my Dynacos back…….. Sigh! I’m sure I’ll find some good ones some day!
I have a pair of A 50’s that would like to sell
What do you think you would like for your Dynaco A50’s? Drop me a note at: padra@email.com
Thanks…
Anybody Here still looking for these A50’s? My grandfather left me the whole kit. Everything is still in its original boxes.
Long shot, I know, but are the A50’s still available? If so please email me. Thanks.
Sorry, email is dhmcclain1@comcast.net. thanks.
Doesn’t look like anyone’s Post-it anything since 2015. I was cleaning out a church recently and found a pair of a 25. I bring them back to my home and was about to hook him up to my turntables and probably would have blew them but I had trouble hooking them up so I got online and seeing there is some value in them the speakers are very clean look good for their age and they even more my dad hooked him up to his old record player they actually sound pretty good. Any interest please contact me