Rare Pilot 246 "Curtain Of Sound" Stereo Integrated Amplifier - Fully Restored, Plug And Play Ready,

For sale is a fully restored Pilot 246 "Curtain Of Sound" tube integrated amplifier. This is a very rare model (we were told only around 20 were made total) and it has incredible build quality throughout. Pilot was competing with the big boys (Fisher, HH Scott etc) at this time and they did a great job with the design and building of this model. It has extra beefy output transformers for the 7591 (on par with the famous Eico ST-70 monster output transformers) with great overall bandwidth, huge bass, perfect balance and amazingly clear highs. The stereo imaging on this amp is second to none and there is not a genre of music that this amp can't handle! And an incredible sounding phono stage as well. It's hands down the best sounding tube amp (and arguably the best looking) in our collection and we are sure it will be the jewel of your collection as well!

Cosmetically the unit is in very nice shape with minimal face wear. It is missing it's original metal cage and so the faceplate is currently held on with discrete custom made brackets and small Velcro supports on the back. The rear of the unit has a small chassis ding under the fuse holder.

For the restoration, this unit was kept as absolutely original as possible. The restoration is just meant to make the unit ultra reliable and of course sound great as well. We strive to respect the originality of these old designs as much as possible. The volume pot was replaced with an exact replacement from another Pilot amp (this took us over half a year to source!) and the loudness and phono selector switches were rebuilt with new internals but retaining the original switch ends! The original can caps are disconnected internally but left in place to maintain the original look. New high life, 105 degree C rated capacitors are discretely wired in internally. All of the original Cornell-Dublier coupling caps tested great and are known to be very reliable so they were left in place, except the post phase inverter caps which are always changed to ensure that the hard to source 7591 never have bias runaway issues from leaky coupling caps).

The post-phase inverter coupling caps we used are very high dollar NOS 1960's USA-made military spec paper in oil capacitors that we typically only use in our personal gear! The quad of vintage 7591 all test strong on our TV/7U and using the amps built in DC balance and bias controls, both sides match and bias up perfectly. The phase inverter and phono tubes are all the original famous vintage Telefunkens and the tone control tubes are a wonderful sounding set of Amperex Bugle Boy 12AX7. This amp is decked out only with the best of the best vintage tubes throughout.

A thermistor is added both to slow start the amp (helps preserve the power switch as well) and to reduce the typically high modern wall voltages. Screen resistors were added to help protect those precious vintage 7591 tubes. Biasing the amp is very simple, the bias jumper plug is removed and the voltage is measured from the center pin to each outer pin. First the bias pots are set to minimum and the DC balance is set, then simply bring the bias up until the voltage reads 0.8V on all four tube test points. Test again in 10-30 minutes, adjust if necessary and reinstall the bias jumper when done.

The amp will be packaged and shipped carefully using UPS with full insurance.