It was another fine vintage Sunday at Jeff's Place with Ron bringing over his beautiful example of the H.H. Scott stereomaster vacuum tube integrated amplifier from his vintage collection. Ron, Leo, George and I had a ball listening to music as usual! Food, good wine, good music, and friends makes for a great Sunday of hi-fi fun & games!

You'll have to give us a pass on the innovative audio stand we used - a chair - with an Acoustic Revive RAF-48 Air Floating Board sitting on its cushion for the stereomaster. The superb Panatela speaker cables & interconnects just weren't quite long enough to reach so we improvised with the chair!

Ron's stereomaster is in beautiful condition and the combination of gold faceplate and wood cabinet looks gorgeous! The phono stage of the stereomaster has both low & high gain settings, and the pair of EL84 outputs in push-pull configuration puts out about 18 watts, says Ron.

I was impressed with the rich, luxurious sound from the little stereomaster. If you like the Leben CS-300 you'd love the stereomaster. The Leben is a little more modern sounding, being brighter and more detailed, and doesn't have the onboard phono stage, but it is a similar idea, and built beautifully - a modern classic.

If you can find one of these beautiful little stereomaster integrated amps in good condition you should buy it on the spot! We were really impressed with its ability to portray engaging melody, rhythm, and tempos, and with its rich and warm overall balance - a terrific music lovers integrated amp! It doesn't sound as powerful at 18 watts as you would expect, but it still had enough power to drive the Westminsters to satisfyingly loud levels with the volume cranked up when using the low output phono setting. It sounded great on the Westminsters!

When I listen to something like the stereomaster I have to wonder where enthusiast audio missed the corner, because it is one terrific integrated amplifier, it is beautiful looking with its wood case and gold faceplate, and so practical with its onboard phono stage, certainly music lovers would be thrilled to be able to buy something like this today! I believe these sold for around $150 USD way back when, and now you can still find very nice examples of them for around $1000 - $1500 USD - which is a bargain for this level of performance.

I'll have some more vintage news to share in due time too, as Leo left some NOS RCA black plate 6L6GCs to try in my McIntosh MC30s (I'm almost afraid to hear them - I know how good black plates are!). Leo also dropped by some very special albums - vintage and new - that I'll be telling you about - stay tuned.

From my home to yours, may the music make you smile!

Thanks for stopping by!