© Don Sachs, 2015
Vintage Tube Audio
Restoration and Repair
Completely Restored Citation II for Sale - $3095-SOLD
Up for sale is a lovingly restored Harman Kardon Citation II power amplifier. These are my specialty and I have rebuilt about 70 of them in the past 5 years.
This particular one is a complete rebuild. Every wire, socket, jack, resistor, capacitor and speaker terminal is new. The transformers have been repainted. It
has every tweak that my personal amp has. I have rebuilt a number of Citation II amps for customers using this recipe and they are very happy. I have heard
Citation II amps in all forms. This amp will be 15-20% better than even a McShane level II+ amp. It is considerably better than a stock Citation II that has just
had the power supply caps replaced. Really it is a stunningly good amp. Here are the details:
1. I installed every single McShane kit - level II+ power supply (plus an extra little choke we have been installing in the past few as another small
improvement).
2. Every capacitor and resistor in the entire amp is new - all very high quality parts from Jim. This is the premium capacitor set with Russian K40 paper in oil
caps as the couplers to the output tubes. It is a wonderful combination and what I have in my own Citation II.
3. Every tube socket, jack, and wire is new. All wiring is teflon coated very high quality from Jim. A mix of solid and stranded wire is used, each where
appropriate. AC tube filament wires are twisted to minimize hum. I replace all the jumper wires underneath the terminal boards as well.
4. I installed modern 5-way gold plated Superior Electric speaker terminals mounted on glass epoxy board. There is room for 3 terminals on each channel so
they are connected as ground, 4, and 8 ohms with the 16 ohm tap wired inside the amp. If you require the 16 ohm tap it is simple to wire it to the terminals
and put the 4 or 8 ohm tap inside the amp and I will do so before shipping the amp.
5. I installed a pair of triode switches on the rear of the amp. These are very high quality switches from Jim. They allow you to toggle between the stock
ultralinear connection of the output tubes (65 watts/ch) or triode connection (34.5 watts/ch). Triode sounds a bit sweeter and still has more than enough power
to drive most speakers in most rooms. The only caveat is that you should only change the setting with the amp off.
6. The original meter was bad so I installed a pair of tip jacks neatly mounted on glass epoxy board in the meter cutout. You may simply plug your external
meter probes into the tip jacks and use it instead of the internal meter. I find even a $15 multi-meter to be far more accurate for biasing and balancing than the
internal meters. About 10% of the meters I see are dead. You would never use the internal meter once you had used the tip jacks.
7. Our CCS upgrade that makes the amp about 10 - 15% better in all regards. Better bass definition and more detail at all frequencies. This can only be
installed by Jim or I or a highly skilled tech. You really need a dual channel oscilloscope to get it right.
8. A new modern 3-wire grounded AC power cord. This is the Audio Asylum tweaker's recipe using Belden shielded 16 gauge cable and a Wattgate AC plug. A
very nice power cord and it is securely clamped insided the amp.
9. The transformers are freshly painted in a brown that is close to the original color. These are done with two coats of automotive paint.
10. The bias pot assemblies were questionable on this amp. Fortunately I have a stash of sealed mil spec bias pots from 1979 that fit perfectly. These have
locking nuts and should last forever, and never need cleaning.
11. A very special tweak; a separate internal transformer for the bias supply. I have now seen 5 amps in the past year or two with failing bias supplies. This is
caused by a weak solder joint on the bias supply winding in the original power transformer. The symptom is that the amp will kill a power tube. You replace the
tube and a week or a month later another tube fails, but when you measure the bias voltage it seems fine. We found a small toroidal transformer that will fit on
the back of the power supply bracket to drive the bias supply. In addition we add a bridge rectifier and convert the original half wave bias supply to full wave.
This makes the bias filter capacitors twice as efficient. The result is a bias supply with much less ripple in it that will never fail. Separating the bias winding
from the main high voltage winding in the main power transformer also cleans up the sound of the amp just a bit. This is hard to imagine since the stock amp
is about as clean as they come, but there is a subtle improvement. The result is an amp that sounds just a bit better with a bias supply that should virtually last
forever. I have installed this bias upgrade in every ampsin the past two years and it eliminates the bias supply intermittent failure. Plus they sound better!
This amp belongs to a customer who had two of them. I rebuilt one for him and he wanted this one to go up for sale. I would normally charge $3295 for this
amp, but given that the internal meter is missing and the chassis is not in the most perfect condition (no rust at all though) I will lower the price to $3095. So
here is a chance to get a completely rebuilt Citation II amp with every tweak and option for $200 off the usual price. As stated above, the meter is a non-issue
since there are tip jacks which are far better anyway. The amp includes a set of new Gold Lion reissue KT88 tubes and 6 NOS 12by7a tubes. The 4 driver tubes
are NOS GE JAN military 12by7a. The Gold Lion reissue KT88 is the best sounding modern production tube for this amp. I have been testing the amp for about
8 hours and it holds bias perfectly. It is so quiet you have to be within 6 inches of my 99 dB horn speakers to hear any hiss or hum at idle. I warrant the amp
for two full years (tubes 90 days). Everything in it is new!
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