Victory amplification, Countess V30 Mk2
Have a soft spot for these amps. Given I am a repair agent for Victory, it’s a good thing. This little girl came in suffering with no output. Powering it up and monitoring the mains power current, it was obvious there was no HT current being drawn by the output stage.
With an input connected, there was a signal getting all the way to the phase splitter stage for the output valves and plenty of angry pixies on the anodes. So, what was happening?.
With the case removed, both EL34s were brand new. So time for a questioning session of the owner. He had changed the output valves as the amplifier had stopped working one day. The bias is set via 1 Ohm resistors in the cathodes which you measure the voltage across. Nothing. Strange, both screen feed resistors, 1K Ohms 4 watts were open circuit. Replacing these which is a bit fiddly, got everything up and running.
These amps sound very clean, HiFi like. Well made. Well done, and all that!
