Legacy Amplifiers

erniejade

Anyone ever heard any of the Coda built Legacy amps? I was looking at a Legacy Power bloc 600 but tying that in a search doesn't pull up much outside that its 300 watts per and Coda built. Too many car amplifiers pull up when you go to a generic legacy amplifier search or legacy audio amplifier search.

I was thinking of picking one up to try on the focus I have. Any 411 on the Legacy amps would be wonderful.

tonyb

Never heard one Ern, they have a limited production which may be why you don't see many. Never heard anyone say anything bad about them, but then again never heard of anyone going out of their way for them either. My suggestion to you, Go McCormack dna250 or higher. I'm still diggin' my Butler on my Focus, that pairing isn't changing anytime soon unless a McCormack DNA 500 falls of a truck in front of me.

McCormack, like the Butler, bridges those gaps between SS and tubed amps. Nice soundstage, good imaging, iron fist on the lower regions yet can still treat the highs like a feather.....like tubes do. Not the best looking amps around, but certainly one of the best sounding which is why you never see many up for sale on the used market. Both brands, McCormack and Butler rarely come up used for sale and for good reason.

SCompRacer

Coda sometimes gets a bad rap cause they will build for others. My InnerSound gear originated from Coda designs with input from Sanders to double the transistors and add a larger toroidal. I've had InnerSound and Coda pre amps and phono stages. Great gear. Coda was started by two of Threshold design members.

SCompRacer

I came up with this old audiocircle FS post, not sure if all the links work.

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=31507.0

As with any old amp, the possibility of recapping exists.

EDIT: try this as a search 'coda legacy amplifier audioasylum'

https://www.google.com/#q=coda+legacy+amplifier+audioasylum

tonyb

Correct Rich, Coda made a lot of stuff for others or had partnerships in building other gear. Now they are on their own doing their own gear out right. Tad bit pricey if you ask me. Their concept is not strange to any of us, use simple designs and quality components. But how they sound....I dunno. Be kinda hard to demo one since they are higher end and not readily available.

tonyb

The Moscode 401, I believe that's right, is another killer amp that would pair well with the Focus. Truthfully, having a 95 efficiency rating makes any amp compatible, but having multiple drivers like the Focus does takes current to start and stop all those drivers. Some flare of tubes somewhere in the system really makes them shine.

erniejade

How about quicksilver silver 90 mono?

tonyb

Always dug their amps, but aren't the mono 90's from like mid 1990's ? Make sure you get a set that has some updating done but otherwise I like their sound and see no reason why they wouldn't pair well.

erniejade

Rich its funny you mentioned InnerSound. That was another one I was looking at. The ESL300 mkII
audioasylum is where I was looking at the legacy coda.
I did call Legacy and talked to Doug. He said the same thing, they didn't sell a lot of it and that's why they didn't even have an online manual for the powerbloc 600. He also mentioned when they do a lot of their voicing, the do use mainly Coda amps but, Bill loves the McIntosh amps.



The Sunfire has served me well for a long time and sounds even better after Rolland did his thing to it. Sometimes you just get the itch. Im not going to call it an upgrade itch because I am sure we have all gone though gear and got rid of something that was better then what replaced it just to change it up. (not that something like that was intentional but, it does happen)

Now I did email the seller of the legacy amp, he said he used to have 2 different sets of Legacy Whispers. He said his favorite amp on the whispers was the quicksilver mono silver 90 so, I started looking around at them also.

The other amp I was looking at is a McIntosh MC352 but, right now that is about 1000$ out of my range. I would like to keep in about $2000 and for that, there is a LOT to choose from. Without hearing them I have to rely on the ears of others and because of that, I try to make sure they are solid brands that can resell just in case its not a good match for my rig or I get that change itch.

erniejade

Krell KSA-250 is another one I was looking at but the seller said pick up only in Boston area since its about 140 lbs.

SCompRacer

erniejade wrote: »

Krell KSA-250 is another one I was looking at but the seller said pick up only in Boston area since its about 140 lbs.

Oh yeah, the KSA-250 could be a lifetime amp. Had one here not long ago but it didn't match gain with my active bass amp so I let it go. You get some folks that bad rap the Krell but they still have quite a following. There were three revisions of the KSA-250 amp, the first one identified by binding post location, the other by innards and higher bias (rev 3). There were some caps on the soft start board of the later revisions that could be cooked by resistors nearby so worth it to pop the top of one and check it out. Some say just recap them. I had what looked like a very low use beauty, no heat marks at all.

My active bass amp is InnerSound (600WPC @ 4). I upgraded to a Sanders ESL amp for my panels which is based on the InnerSound MK II amp, but with even larger potted toroidal and better transistors. ~ 700WPC at 4 Ohms IIRC.

The InnerSound MK II is a great amp, but avoid the first version. The second version can be ID'd by WBT binding posts.

SCompRacer

tonyb wrote: »

Correct Rich, Coda made a lot of stuff for others or had partnerships in building other gear. Now they are on their own doing their own gear out right. Tad bit pricey if you ask me. Their concept is not strange to any of us, use simple designs and quality components. But how they sound....I dunno. Be kinda hard to demo one since they are higher end and not readily available.

I haven't heard their latest and greatest either, only the early stuff. Solid design though. And they will service the InnerSound/Legacy gear too.

SCompRacer

Carl has a Classe DR-25 driving his SDA's. Nice amp! They don't pop up too often.

erniejade

Thanks for the 411 on the Krell and the InnerSound. I did not know they had different versions! The search continues!

The quicksilver I was looking at was recapped but, it still has the dang strip terminals that are too small for regular spades like the McIntosh stuff before they went with normal terminals. Way too many options.

tonyb

lol....yes Sir, many options await you. I'll throw another you may not have thought of. Since your happy with the Sunfire, for now anyway, why not sell the Focus for around 2 g's, put the other 2'g's into that and pick up a demo set of Focus HD's ?

SCompRacer

Many directions to go all right.

Just a little more 411 about the InnerSound ESL amps. The original or first version ESL amp had a small amount of local feedback with no global feedback. The result was it needed higher bias to keep distortion low. The amp ran warm and didn't control the bass quite as tightly as the second version. The first version was OK for an ESL speaker but not a conventional speaker; the MK II will work well with both.

I was close to digging into retirement funds and forking over $8K to Salk (RAAL ribbon tweet, Accuton midrange) just to keep that Krell. Sometimes wants can override the reality of happiness and contentment with a system...lol

Glen B

I tried the Coda built Legacy Class A/AB High Current Amp (220W x 2) back in the 1990s. It was Legacy's first amp. I recall it as fairly neutral sounding, and able to keep its composure at high output levels.

erniejade

SCompRacer wrote: »

. Sometimes wants can override the reality of happiness and contentment with a system...lol

Wise words!!!!!!!!!! That is the quote of the day!!!!

Had a line on a dr 25. They sold it faster then I could pull the trigger. So frustrating.

SCompRacer

Yeah, the DR's have a following. Carl says he paid $1300 for his.

Glen, thanks for sharing your experience. Here are the InnerSound MK II and Sanders ESL amps based on the original Coda design. Same basic design, big caps under board. Sanders uses a larger potted toroidal. The third is my InnerSound MK II active crossover bass amp (600WPC @ 4). The removed four 10,000uf caps to make room for the active only leaving 40,000uf; kind of lean for an amp of that capacity IMO. I added a couple boards in the open space and used a greater quantity of smaller uf caps to get closer to 80,000uf. Now I can play dubstep without it running out of reserve.

pitdogg2

Rich you never fail to amaze me in you skills
Nice work

Glen B

Seconded. Nicely done cap upgrade.

Glen B

erniejade wrote: »

Wise words!!!!!!!!!! That is the quote of the day!!!!

Had a line on a dr 25. They sold it faster then I could pull the trigger. So frustrating.

There is a DR-25 on Audiogon right now at asking price of $1,400.00. The seller is entertaining offers, so it may be obtainable for less. The one caveat is the seller has zero feedback.

Class

erniejade

that is the one that said he sold. nanoav(No Feedback)
Sunnyvale, CA 94087 (United States)
nanoavOctober 31, 2013 1:23am
Thank you for the update.

I have two dr25 and a local buyer took both of them home to test them in his system. They were listed locally for 2 each.

erniejade

I just sent him another email. He sent me his number. I am going to call him now.

erniejade

The guy can talk wow. As it now turns out, the other person did take both but, only paid for one and was supposed to pay him today for the other one but hasn't. Sooo..... It might be mine. I told him before I would send funds, to make sure he has the amp back and nothing happened to it.

schwarcw

pitdogg2 wrote: »

Rich you never fail to amaze me in you skills
Nice work

You got that right! Amazing skills and a real gentleman. He's also experienced in hiding dead hookers.

tonyb

schwarcw wrote: »

You got that right! Amazing skills and a real gentleman. He's also experienced in hiding dead hookers.

Hmmm....dead hookers huh ?

I kinda like mine with a wee bit of life left in them. Makes the experience soo much better. But I guess being dead has one benefit anyway, you don't have to pay them.

SCompRacer

Thanks for the kind words....and Tony, we just need to get some that can take it is all.;) But that's how Carl is able to grow his Banana plant over seven feet tall in PA. lol

Seems like we just planted that Carl....

lawdogg

SCompRacer wrote: »

Here are the InnerSound MK II and Sanders ESL amps based on the original Coda design. Same basic design, big caps under board. Sanders uses a larger potted toroidal. The third is my InnerSound MK II active crossover bass amp (600WPC @ 4). The removed four 10,000uf caps to make room for the active only leaving 40,000uf; kind of lean for an amp of that capacity IMO. I added a couple boards in the open space and used a greater quantity of smaller uf caps to get closer to 80,000uf. Now I can play dubstep without it running out of reserve.

@SCompRacer Sorry to dig up an old post - but nice work. I just got my hands on a Legacy Audio High Current amplifier (an early one, like the one in Glen B's post above) that I am planning to swap in for my NAD 2200 to drive my 3.1TLs. The Legacy Audio High Current amp is a Coda, so I thought I'd ask you for upgrade advice. I'd love to turn it up a notch if possible.

Thanks,
Ryan

Here's mine:

SCompRacer

lawdogg wrote: »

@SCompRacer Sorry to dig up an old post - but nice work. I just got my hands on a Legacy Audio High Current amplifier (an early one, like the one in Glen B's post above) that I am planning to swap in for my NAD 2200 to drive my 3.1TLs. The Legacy Audio High Current amp is a Coda, so I thought I'd ask you for upgrade advice. I'd love to turn it up a notch if possible.

Thanks,
Ryan

Here's mine:

Greetings Ryan! No need to be sorry! Those are great amps.

As far as upgrading, I can't offer any advice for that. The only thing I can offer is the caps may be aged and need replacing.

On the active crossover bass amp, InnerSound only had two large caps per channel 20,000uf per channel (40,000uf total) where you have four caps or 40,000uf per channel, (80,000uf total).

I added two boards and used eight smaller caps per channel to arrive at the 80,000uf capacitiance.

I'm guessing you could find the same value 10,000uf caps and install them in original location.

Only other way to hotrod it would be to change the bias, but that would require someone smarter than I.

lawdogg

SCompRacer wrote: »

Greetings Ryan! No need to be sorry! Those are great amps.

As far as upgrading, I can't offer any advice for that. The only thing I can offer is the caps may be aged and need replacing.

On the active crossover bass amp, InnerSound only had two large caps per channel 20,000uf per channel (40,000uf total) where you have four caps or 40,000uf per channel, (80,000uf total).

I added two boards and used eight smaller caps per channel to arrive at the 80,000uf capacitiance.

I'm guessing you could find the same value 10,000uf caps and install them in original location.

Only other way to hotrod it would be to change the bias, but that would require someone smarter than I.

Ah, I see what you did, fantastic! Thanks! I suppose I'll just run this and see how it goes. I'm curious to learn more about these amps as I am not digging up too much online. It looks like yours has twice as many output transformers as mine, wow!