Eico 221 (1959–1962)

The Eico 221 is a tube tuner-preamplifier that Eico introduced in 1959 and kept in the line through 1962. It sold for $149.50. The 221 was designed to pair with the company's HF81 amplifier — the fact sheet states plainly that the HF81 was built to be used with this tuner preamp, making the two a matching front-end/amplifier combination in Eico's catalog.

Documentation on the 221 is thin beyond the basics. What the record shows: it's an FM-only unit covering 87.5–108 MHz with a 10.7 MHz I.F., and its output is rated at 2 V. The tube complement is five tubes total — three EF86 pentodes, one ECC83 dual triode, and one EZ81 rectifier. Sensitivity figures conflict between sources, with one listing 3.5 µV and another 3 µV; given the disagreement, I'm not going to pick a winner here.

Notably, the 221 appears in period Eico advertising in Audio (November 1964, p.98), where the company promoted its hi-fi line as available in semi-kit form for the cost-conscious builder who also wanted to learn to service their own gear — or as factory-wired units for those who preferred to skip the soldering. That ad placement came a couple of years after the 221's production run ended, so it's likely the model was still being cleared through dealers at that point.

Beyond that, almost nothing else is recorded. No dimensions, no weight, no distortion or signal-to-noise figures for the audio section, no input/output details, and no owner impressions or collector-market pricing have surfaced in the research. If you have a 221 and can fill in any of those gaps, the archive would love to hear from you.