The Priboi Amplifier

Vintage Soviet Hi-Fi

About a year ago, I got my hands on my first tube amp. It is a Soviet-made 1980’s-era Priboi 204s, with a rated output of 50 W. I got it on OLX, the Romanian equivalent of eBay, for about $200. There is already an excellent technical write-up of this amp from Grzegorz “gsmok” Makarewicz in Poland, including the schematics. I agree with his summary: “a princess dressed in a beggar’s rags”. I am here to add another data point.

TL;DR: The Priboi is a nice design with some shoddy elements in it execution. With a little TLC and the right speakers, though, it sounds great.

Mechanical

The Priboi was built for theaters and auditoriums. Western consumer-market tube amps are designed to scream, “Hey, look at the cool tube amp!” But the Priboi is not a consumer product. It’s just a box with a power switch and a pair of level sliders on the front, with all the connectors in the back. Some versions have rack tabs. Some owners have added various meters. (I might do the same at some point.)

The case is thin and cheap, but the chassis is very solid welded aluminum, a requirement to support the massive transformers. The system is built with three PC boards: a power supply and two mono-block amps. These boards mount in the chassis with screws. The front panel is at least 3 mm thick…