I found a couple of high-end audio transformers from Taiwan crammed into the corner of one box. After seeing those again after I had put them away 9 years ago, I felt compelled to either use them or sell them on eBay. You can probably guess what I decided to do with them.
I spent most of that weekend designing and building a small amplifier around them. The sound, however is much bigger than the 1.3 watts per channel it puts out. The transformers have surprisingly good bass extension down to 15Hz and when coupled with the Klipsch LaScalas can play uncomfortably loud if I wanted.Another gem I found was the burned-out carcass of an old Dynaco ST70. I had been planning to recover the transformers and whatever else I could use. I had a brand new spare front end board lying around and mounted everything to a chunk of plywood.
At 50 watts per channel, it'll be considerably louder than the 1.3 watts my other amp will have. But instead of the nice finished appearance that the other amp has, this one will look like something out of a mad scientist's lab.Which, of course, was the exact look I was going for.
