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Propeller Head Plaza Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics. |
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Propeller Head Plaza Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics. |
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In Reply to: I've seen a lot of reviews of tube amps with a high output impedance. posted by Pat D on June 9, 2006 at 18:48:50:
50 watts a side at clipping, which is about what the DC coupled OTL is good for into 8-16 ohms is not exactly what I'd regard as low powered. More like medium powered, perhaps. Its distortion signature is most characteristic of a very clean PP triode amplifier but without falloff in sound quality at the audible frequency extremes. Sonically, it most resembles a very high quality solid state amplifier in the bass, but with its 500 Joules of capacitive storage in its power supply, it is more robust in this regard than those of all but boutique solid state amplifiers, and, additionally, it totally lacks solid state grain. It also features a fully balanced topology and 20db of internal dynamic headroom (e.g. - you have to overdrive it more than about 20 db beyond its nominal power rating before internal clipping occurs, assuring virtually instantaneous transient overload recovery.)
The DC Coupled triode OTL also operates in Class A up to several watts in output power, again unlike all but some boutique solid state amplifiers, and with the relatively low transconductance of the output stage devices it avoids anything resembling crossover distortion, even on a transient basis, so it has a falling distortion characteristic at reduced levels instead of the rising low level distortion of many SS amps that results from their output device nonlinearities near cutoff.The result is an amplifier that sounds better than any solid state amp I've heard, even where solid state traditionally is acknowledged to be better than tubes, except perhaps wrt ultimate current delivery into a load.
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Follow Ups
- Re: I've seen a lot of reviews of tube amps with a high output impedance. - Tom Dawson 19:23:08 06/09/06 (4)
- Re: I've seen a lot of reviews of tube amps with a high output impedance. - theaudiohobby 10:59:43 06/11/06 (2)
- Re: I've seen a lot of reviews of tube amps with a high output impedance. - Tom Dawson 19:47:30 06/12/06 (0)
- Explanation of falling distortion with reduced output - Soundmind 04:48:11 06/12/06 (0)
- You can refute Richard's universal statement with a single counterexample, - Pat D 14:42:24 06/10/06 (0)
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