World Audio Designs K5881 Mk2

Welcome to the WORLD of Valve Audio.

I bought my K5881 Valve audio amplifier approx 5 years ago. It cost me £500. This buys you all the components, valves and fully finished drilled and painted case. The kit came with good clear and easy to follow instructions on how to build your amplifer. All you need is some soldering iron practice, some common sense and a multimeter (of course). The kit took me approx 14 evenings to build after work. This kit was constructed in the same way as the original Valve amplifiers of the 50's and 60's, using simple Tag boards to mount all the components, and then wire the tag boards to the valve based. The instructions give an example of the wiring layout, so there's no need to worry if it's your first time. The final product is still going strong on the original valves after 5 years and I can see the valve lasting a good few more years yet. The construction is so strong, i'm sure this amplifier will out live me.

I was always a bit against old technology, but this valve amplifier really taught me that good technology is good technology, and it doesn't mean new is better. The valve designs have changed little from the 50's and 60's, but advances in electronic components have very much improved the quality of these simple designs. Sadly the K5881 is no longer in production at World Audio Designs, but they still have loads of great Class A Valve Amplifier Kits, and most use pre-etched circuit boards to reduce the wiring to a bare minimum. So build times have been reduced. So do yourself a favour and next time your amplifier comes up for replacement, think Valve. Yes, they aren't cheap, but the kit's are very affordable, and will outlive any transistor amplifier i've seen. Well here's hoping i got my message across..

Regards

A Queen Fan.