Heathkit W5-M (c. 1958–1959)
Little is documented about the Heathkit W5-M beyond its own advertising — and that advertising is really most of the record. Heathkit promoted the W5-M as an "Advance Design" 25-watt hi-fi amplifier kit, priced at $59.75. The company's ads in High Fidelity (November 1958, p.32) promised the usual kit-era virtues: clean, distortion-free reproduction and advanced circuitry for the money. The same ad continued to run through at least late 1959, so the W5-M looks like a steady, low-priced entry in Heathkit's amp lineup rather than a brief experiment.
Beyond the ads, almost nothing survives. No independent period review, no detailed spec sheet, and no service manual have turned up in the archive. The one useful extra detail comes from a contemporary Heathkit ad for the W-6M, a 70-watt companion kit at $109.95, which positions the W5-M as the smaller, cheaper option for builders who didn't need that much headroom. For now, that's the honest extent of the record: a price, a power rating, and a couple of years of print ads.
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