Opinions on Scott tube gear?

I have a chance to pick up a decent Scott 355 tube pre-amp and a Scott 208 tube amp. I was wondering what others thought of the performance and sound of these and what's a fair price to pay? TIA!

The 208 is regarded as being a very nice sounding amp and current E-Bay sales have been from $200 to $393 depending on condition. Now that you can buy new 7591 output tubes the cost to retube isn't that much as opposed to looking for NOS american 7591's at $200 per quad. I see that it also uses a GZ34 rectifier and some would say that makes the amp more desirable than one using solid state rectification. The GZ34/5AR4 are also being made again but most tube fanatics would say a real Mullard is best but they are $80-$100 each. I think if the amp is working up to spec it would sound very nice indeed but by now the caps are probably leaky and the lytics have seen better days. Plan on a rebuild if your going to use it. At the very least the coupling caps and output tube bias supply.
WOW. The 355 is georgeous! I just looked it up. I don't have any info on it but judging by the tube compliment it sure looks like a very decent preamp/tuner combo. I see no e-bay sales but there is one ending in two days. You might want to watch what it goes for.
Both of these pieces are fairly rare being that they don't come up that often. Check out hhscott.com for pics and info under "products"

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-SCOTT-Mo...QQcmdZViewItem

Thanks DaveV. You never played in The DAMNED did you? (See Dave Vanian)

Thats what sold me was the Pre-Amp. Its was pretty sexy but the amp is rather plain. Good to know it preforms. I will try it on the L-100s and the Paragon and post the results.


Anyone else have any advice/opinions?

Different Dave V. The 208 is plain looking and it looks like a "pull" from a 60's console but I think the design idea there was an amp that gets hidden away not to be looked at. The 7591 output tube is used in classics like the Scott 340B, 299C & D, Fisher 500C and Mac 225 all of which are regarded to be good. The difference in the 208 is that it also uses a tube rectifier and the others used diodes for B+ rectification so in theory you get the punch of the 7591 and the slightly warmer sonics of tube rectification. If operating up to or near spec I don't see why the 208 wouldn't be good for efficient horns unless your used to an equailzed solid state slam on your woofers.

I used a Scott 130 preamp for awhile, and it was a very fine-sounding preamp, although a little noisey. But it was old even then (1980's) and probably needed some rebuilding.

I found and used briefly a few of their tube tuners, and they always sounded very good to me. And I liked the look and feel of the handcrank tuning dials.

Herman Hosmer Scott was one of the creators of high fidelity and the equipment he made and sold was first rate in its day.

Electronics manufacturing was the second major industry that was exported by US trade policy (first was shoes, I think) and like a lot of pioneering US hi fi manufacturers Scott went under in the flood of cheap imports.

David