Vintage Early Sota Head Amplifier Moving Coil Preamp John Curl Design NO RESERVE

Description

SOTA HEAD AMPLIFIER, for use with low-output moving coil phono cartridges. This pre-preamplifier was designed for SOTA by the legendary audio engineer John Curl. This is a head amplifier used to step up the output of a low output Moving Coil cartridge. It is very quiet, and adds gain only to a normal phono stage.
You need a tube or other phono stage for RIAA EQ after the head amp. That's why it's called a 'head amp' and not a phono-stage. "This SOTA Head Amplifier is housed in a machined aluminum cylinder, 3 1/2" in diameter and 6 1/4" long, and is mounted on a solid wood walnut base. In order to avoid potential hum problems associated with AC power supplies the SOTA Head Amplifier is powered by two (2) standard "D" cell batteries. The batteries are easily installed by simply removing the two screws from the front panel, while supporting the back panel with your other hand. The back panel, with the internal circuit board attached, then simply slides out the back of the cylinder. The SOTA Head Amplifier weighs approximately 2.5 pounds without the batteries, and 3 pounds with the batteries installed.
The back panel has gold-plated input and output jacks, plus a center grounding post. It can be adjusted for 5-ohm, 30-ohm or 100-ohm cartridge loading, using the upper toggle switch, and can be set for either high or low gain, with another toggle switch near the bottom of the panel.
The unit is turned on and off by a push-button on the front, with an orange center "flag" that is visible when the unit is in the "ON" position.
Missing one screw nut as shown - easily replaced.
This amplifier was in good working condition when purchased. Upon opening it, I discovered that the plastic casing holding the two D cell batteries was cracked - as shown - and held together with tape. The two batteries I removed were clean and fresh.
All switches are crisp and work perfectly.
The hand crafted circuit boards are intact and undamaged.
This an early production model, numbered 127.
Please note that this is a NO-RESERVE auction, thank you!