What do you guys and gals think of this amp ( aside from the price )?Quality of build,sound, etc. Love to hear your comments.Thanks
Very overpriced.. I wouldn't pay that much for a transistor amplifier.. There is absolutely no need for that kind of power output, and looking at the s/n ratios and 3rd harmonic distortion, personally I would just buy a pair of old Crown dc300's. If you are after real high end then you can't do any better from a sound quality aspect than a couple of Croft series II OTL (they use "direct coupled" as there is no series capacitor either.. the speakers are connected directly to the output tubes cathodes) tube amps.. finding them is another matter... Hearing an OTL amplifier for the first time is not unlike hearing an electrostatic loudspeaker or a master-tape for the first time. The primary characteristics - openness and transparency - are most disconcerting, especially if you've been living with solid-state equipment.
For tube sweetness, I liked the old "Wotans" by VTL, but could never afford. So for the time being, I use my Cayin HA-1 headphone amp in SET mode and a pair of AKG 701's. But I like sledgehammer bass in my music, so transistor amps are for me.
I grew up with tubes.. Currently run 4 TVM pk200 tube amps as slaves from a Leak tube preamp. They will knock drinks over at 10 feet. It's getting hard to source good KT88 output tubes for any kind of sensible price. I would.. if a liking for lots of bass is the thing.. look at the more professional PA equipment end of the market.. A nice pair of tube amps for say everything above 30Hz and a Peavey or Hill 1000 watt monster for the real bottom end. Probably look at an ex-big rig pair of folded horns too maybe? I used to run sound rigs up to 40K and at that end efficiency means as much as power.. I don't ever push more than say 20 watts total out of my big tube amps, but they have it there for transients.. 40db headroom :lol: IMHO it comes down to perception of volume.. clipped and lots of 3rd harmonic sounds far louder than ultra clean at the same level, but there comes a point where increasing the transmission capabilities of the hardware seems to cause a rise in clip and distortion... On measuring equipment it's not detectable, but your brain seems to hear it... That goes back to the days of things like the sheffield direct cut vinyls.. digital music on my setup generally sounds pretty horrid.. It's like you can hear the sample rate, even from cd... It just sounds false... not real, like a machines interpretation of the sound rather than the sound itself... Seriously tho.. If you have a heap of cash to spend then take a long look at active crossover units. Huge solid state amps.. regardless of the figures printed on paper don't seem to be able to handle high quality high bandwidth signals without introducing quite noticeable intermodulation distortion. Split the signal into 3 and it cuts that problem greatly, and also allows you to fine tune for phase differences etc.
Bro, you are one of the few here at AD that I can have a "real" chat with on high end audio, and that's not all about price.Yes, I do remember sheffield direct to disc and MFSL's half speed masters.Like you said KT 88's are becoming hard to get ( good ones ), so I invested in some Musical Fidelity X-10 v3 line tubed line buffers just to add some sweetness to my solid state amps. Not bad I have to say.
They do sem to work well with some setups. I'm just lucky that I kept all this vintage equipment back in the early 80's when people were just throwing it out. My pre-amp came off a tip, now they turn in at close to £500 without any of the incredibly scarce ECC87 mullards (12AU7?. Not even listed in my 1964 data book) I try to run it pure without worrying too much about what it is. For day to day background I just use an old technics su-z200. Saves my 88's for the good stuff when I can just listen and enjoy One worrying trend is this digital remastering of classic recordings. I have some wonderful live recordings.. Donovan at the hollywood bowl and the like.. vinyl.. the cd reissue is just awful. Don't know what they have done, the original recording is so clear and open it takes your breath away. You can hear the audience breathing, and the traffic in the extreme distance.. Not there on the cd.
Thought you would be interested in this brand of HF units.. I have tested a pair and thought they were better than anything I have heard so far. http://www.raalribbon.com/aboutus.htm
Varnull bro, thanks for the heads up. Ribbons, ah the holy grail of loud speakers. Previously, I looked into Bohlender- Graebeners and Wisdom speakers. BG's did not enthrall me enough for the price and Wisdoms wanted an arm and a leg and and the kidneys and liver also. I will look into these. Again, many thanks for thinking about me.
