Hallo alle!
Jan.
As the Johnny come lately then. Just picked up a Dynacord Reference 502 that was real low on output too. As i presume you´re familiar with the amp contains a lot of electromechanical contacts.
In my case it was mainly a matter of cleaning these out with rubbing alcohol and isopropanol. That done,i cleaned the entire working parts of the amp out, that done all i had to do was reset bias and we were back in business.
That said i agree with others on here that these amps carry with them a distortion that is rather..different. Not bad nor good,just..different.
As it wasn´t to my liking i opted to reset the amp as far as topology for the phaseinverter as well as portions of the preamp,and indeed distortion focus shifted as expected and in turn was also harmonically enhanced.
For tutorial videos please check YT out. The stocker is presented in a video simply called "Reference 502" and the 1st version of the modified unit as "Dynacord Reference 502".
I expect further modifications to take place in the absolute near future.
What has impressed the living daylights out of me with it is the build quality. Sound and emphasis of sound can always be argued as it is a matter of taste,however the actual layout and build is just mindblowing as you start to really look into it. I do tubeamps for a part time living and as such have had my nose into more tubers than i care to remember and the Reference 502...is by far the most thought through design as of yet IMO
It is,for lack of better description,very "German" to the build...and my hat´s certainly off.
I´ve also seen remarks on here as to decreasing B+ voltage for the plates of the EL-34´s. My advice is..don´t. The inherent harshness and shrills of the amp does not lie therein.
Reason for it is all preamp and phaseinverter.
As i opted to reset the phaseinverter the amplification of it has increased and although beyond the scope of the designers of the amp at one time i´m therefore going to install a regular PPIMV pot and in turn increase the value of the "master" volume control. The idea is of course to be able to dial in more distortion at will,and should the need arise.
FWIW,pleae check out the videos (and more are to come) as it explains what´s been done better than words.