FAQ #5

Should I rebuild my old Dyna or Hafler equipment or buy new?

It is simply a matter of economics (unless you are emotionally attached to that old chassis).

In general, in comparing the cost of one of our new amplifiers or preamplifiers to that of rebuilding your existing Hafler or Dyna unit, you are saving the cost of the chassis because we reuse yours. If the musical performance is the important thing for you, then by all means have us recycle your old chassis and save the money (typically about $200). The savings are greater yet if you rebuild your Dyna preamplifier yourself with our rebuild kits.

With the old Dyna Pas vacuum tube preamplier the savings are dependent upon how much you do yourself and how up to date you want it. If you have a good original unit then it makes sense to install our basic Super Pas Three kit and enjoy thoroughly modern vacuum tube performance. There is an upper limit to what you should do to a Pas though, defined by the price of our complete new Transcendence Eight SL preamp. The new T8 SL includes new tubes, new gold jacks, a premium selector switch, 15 amp modern polarized AC outlets, and functions unavailable on the old Pas chassis such as tape-to-tape monitoring capability and a built-in headphone amplifier. Because the old Pas chassis is labor intensive to work on, if you had us install the Super Pas Three kit instead of doing it yourself and added factory installed gold jacks, new tubes, and a new selector switch too, your total cost would be comparable to buying a new factory-wired Transcendence Eight. That wouldn't make sense as the new T8 is a much nicer unit overall.

Our rebuilds are the most value for those who already own a good old Hafler or Dyna unit that we rebuild. It is already paid for and you know its condition. Obviously you shouldn't go out and buy an old used Dyna or Hafler unit to send to us to rebuild because then the cost of the chassis will be subtracted from your savings and you might buy one too badly shot to be economically recyclable.

One advantage to our rebuilds is that in general there are no repair charges for fixing circuit problems as all the old circuits and their problems end up in the trash can without need for troubleshooting and repair. (We do need good power transformers, chassis integrity and some of the basic controls). When your old original Dyna or Hafler amp blows up (and they will because they are so old) the cost for a hit-or-miss local repair may even be more that what we charge for a complete new amplifier in your box — and the new Audio by Van Alstine amplifier will be state of the art for a lot less money than any other choice you could make.