First time posting. A little background to my question: I picked up a Scott 299C a couple of years ago without really knowing what I was doing. I heard they were a good amp to try out that tube sound for not too much $, so I figured why not, I've been curious for a long time. The amp played well, but with quite a bit of hum and crackle on one side. Some "expert" told me to change out the original 7591 tubes with new ones and that would solve the problem. So I got some brand new (Russian I think) 7591s and put them in, then fired up the amp. After about a minute there's a really BIG POP and the amp goes dead - no sound at all! This freaked me out so much I immediately unplugged it, wondering what kind of god-awful damage I unwittingly inflicted. I just couldn't deal with it and put the poor thing away for probably a year and half and just went back to this Yamaha solid-state amp that I have. The Yamaha is big and loud, but not amazing. Anyway, to make a long story longer, eventually I decided to take the Scott somewhere that knows this stuff and find out what the problem was. I looked on the web and called around for someone/place local (I'm in the SF bay area). So there's just not a lot nearby except for some guitar amp guys (I wasn't sure if they would really know how to treat this old hi-fi stuff and didn't want to make another mistake). Since it seemed this was going to be more of a process than I thought and since it had been so long since I last tried it, I decided to clean the pins and reseat the original tubes (about all I know how to do), then try the old Scott once more before just taking it SOMEWHERE. I hooked up my JBL Century 100s (more vintage!) and pulled the power knob, expecting nothing, or for it to blow up! Now I have no idea how or why, but the Scott powered up and worked! Not only worked, it sounded great! I mean so bizarre I can't even believe it myself. I've been using it now for about 3 months and it sounds amazing. The hum/crackle problem is not there now. The sound really does live up to what others have said. Hopefully I'll never have to go back to solid-state again. Here's the question: Should I just never mess with the tubes in this amp again? Was it that it just didn't like those Russian tubes, or... ?

I'm very curious how long I expect this old (not sure how old) totally original amp to play well if I just leave it alone.

Any insight much appreciated!

theo

The amp has been running and sounding fantastic ever since I re-tried it a couple of months ago. From what I was told, everything in the amp is original, including the tubes. After my experience mentioned in the original post, I'm very leary of using anything but NOS tubes when the time comes. I just hope I can find some good ones before these need replacing. The amp sounds so sweet now that at this point I've pretty much adopted the mindset of "if it ain't broke don't fix it." It seems alot of people say the caps and such NEED to be replaced, but I'm afraid if I get someone to work on it, some of the original magic could be lost. Does anyone know how long this beauty might run without any work being done on it?

Theo

I checked the caps for heat as you suggested and they get a little warm, but I think that's just because they are close to the tubes. They definitely don't get hot.

You're so right about the phono on this amp. I couldn't believe my ears when I first played a record. The sound almost seems three-dimensional. I'd really like to get a better turntable (any suggestions for a nice, not too expensive turntable?), but even with this average Sony turntable I have, the sound is amazing.

I read an article in Rolling Stone (latest issue) about modern digital sound quality and basically the article ends saying that hi-fi, audiophile sound quality is over - a thing of the past. Amazing, with all this new technology, sound quality is actually getting worse! And people seem to be OK with that. Me, I'll stick with this 45-year old Scott if that's what it takes to get the real deal.

Theo

Also, what do you think about linear tracking tables? I know they were quite popular for a while, but maybe not so much now. I've always wondered if those produce better sound on the inner tracks of a record. The increased distortion on those inners grooves has always bothered me, so if there was a table (perhaps linear) that would reduce this problem, I'd really be interested.

Thanks very much for all the info!

Theo