OK, that'll sort the missing 1920's from my collection! ...or perhaps not Wonder how many years a factory worker would've needed to work to be able to afford that in 1929.

As I always say, the Pentas are just another 8 ohm speaker and not some mythical sea monster born to eat amplifiers... As I understand these valve sets would be most efficient with 3-6 ohms, but otherwise no problem there. I'm sure that if you put a distortion meter on the output at large volumes, it would show something awful, but 3% of harmonic

For the earlier MMC20 series the correct capacitance was 220 pF, so perhaps try with something smaller than 470. But in the end, let your ears decide!

I'm rather envious of that Jet Present of yours as well, John I've now managed to collect something useable from every decade except the 1920's and 50's. There's probably nothing practical left from the 20's and I think I have enough post-war valve radios as it is (certainly for this flat!), but we'll see...

The knob seems correct, the end stops of the travel are where they are supposed to be. Just that the pot needs to be set at about 8 o'clock for the frequency response to sound natural. Not a showstopper, but there's not much usable range If cleaning doesn't restore the tuner I'll get a new ECC85 to try. Already found a local source for

Sigh, bliss isn't eternal. While I enjoyed my CDs, the tuner developed a fault - perhaps something gave due to the heat. Couple of stations come through everywhere on the dial seemingly regardless where I turn it. Some valve socket problems remain, so I'll clean them properly and redo some solderings. Meanwhile, I'm all ears for possible

If you're on Windows, foobar2000 is a free player which will also convert pretty much anything to anything. You may need to download some components or encoders separately and the tagging / filename conversion will need some thought - read the instructions, or be prepared to start over many times!

So you have a Beosystem 5500? Unfortunately no way of controlling the volume without another remote... so in the meantime you should get yourself a Beolink 1000 or a Beo4! Finding the spare part may be a bit of a problem, but replacing it won't be a big job to someone who knows what he's doing. Cleaning the switch would be a good idea for starters

Off to the model shop then! Thanks I've been playing it all afternoon and love it. Might be my new favourite amp for acoustic music. Even with its mighty 2x4W, it has no problem filling the room with my passive Pentas, the volume setting halfway up. And I'm sure the neighbours would agree! Do you have any theory on the bass issue? It sounds

The Dirigent apparently was not designed with on-the-floor photography in mind. Anyway, here's the result after half an hour of cosmetic work. Wish it was always this easy! The technical part of the business is in this thread .