Zenith 5L29 Single Ended Tube Amp

 

Winter is coming and I finally got around to doing a bit of work on this Zenith 5L29 single ended pentode tube amp. I won this on Ebay about a year ago and it sat in storage. I finally have the time and space to work on tube amps again. 

This little guy is probably maxed out around 5-6 watts per channel. This unit comes with bass, treble, bass boost and volume. It runs two EL84, 12AX7 and a 6FQ7 with 5Y3 rectifier.

So far I just added the speaker terminals along with new RCA input jacks and CL90 inrush current limiter to bring the voltage down a bit from the wall socket. No cap work has been done on it yet.

This is a great little single ended unit and sounds great in my office with a not very efficient pair of Monitor Audio MA-9 speakers.

These are worthy little amp if you can pick one up, super easy to get up and running as a stand alone amp.

November 3, A little update, this little amp sounds fantastic and has really grown on me. I do not use the Bass Boost switch as it takes away the detail of this amp, I may just rewire this circuit out of the amp period.

Loving this amp, what more can I say.....

Monitor Audio MA9 Speakers

I picked up this pair of Monitor Audio MA9 speakers over a year ago and just got them up and running again.

 

 

There is a back story to these speakers that needed to be addressed. One the previous owner seemed to have driven these speakers beyond there output and basically burnt the voice coil on one of the Dalesford woofers, it had a crackling sound.

The closest speaker I could find with the parameters is a pair of Visaton WS-17E woofers, these are also the closest to the same basket shape of the original Dalesford woofers. The mounting holes were just off by millimetres and a small amount of filing was needed to get them installed.

 

 Another issue I found was a cold solder on the crossover which I re flowed with solder.

Another issue was the cabinets needed a good sanding as these speakers are a beautiful wood veneer that you do not find as much these days.

The sanding went smoothly and I added Circa 1850 Terra Nova NaturOil to the veneer and did these ever turn out nice.

 

I am now enjoying these speakers and I am blown away by how nice my first introduction into Monitor Audio products, even if this pair is from 1979.

I find the Visaton woofers sound super nice and the Seas tweeters are superb. This is a great bookshelf speaker, imaging is great and bass is nice and full for a small enclosure