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$4500 amp beat out the Tenor OTL in the latest TAS

You read that right! In the Feb/March edition of TAS, HP declares that the ASL (antique sound lab)Hurricanes at $4500 are the best amps he has EVER heard at any price. In another section of the same issue, the hurricane won tube amp of the year while the Tenor 75 watter was the runner-up.
dolphin
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
Eralff, FWIW, the member I bought my VTL's from went to Atma-Spheres, and last I knew was not convinced about the benefit of his switch. Which is not to denigrate the Atma-Spheres (a product that actually interests me as well), but just to point out that OTL designs (as Rcrump wrote above) will not always work to their full advantage with many speaker designs, so generalizations can be dangerous.
rwd
695 posts
 
Are the Atma-Spheres powerful enough to drive the 4 ohm Infinity RS 1B's? I was always under the impression that they needed the 100-200-300 wpc to really sing. I will have to check out the Atma's!!
twl
3,251 posts
 
I think that the big Atma-Sphere could drive them fine, but you'd have to have the impedance matching transformer in line with them. Once you do that, then it is no longer an OTL, because you had to put the transformer back into the line to handle the 4 ohm load. Then you have the complexity disadvantages of the OTL and the disadvantages of the output transformer too. Much of the OTL benefits are lost in this transition. I'd use a straight high power push-pull amp for this application.
rwd
695 posts
 
......Like the Hurricane??? or ARC 200 or VTL 450???? Right?
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
Yes, those are all high-powered push-pull transformer-coupled amps. After I bought the VTLs in the story I related above, I believe the previous owner was ordering the outboard transformers for his Atma-Spheres (MA-1's, if I recall correctly, but I can't remember what his speakers were). I kind of wonder what his results were, and if the Atma-Sphere circuit retains any of its possible superiority even when used with an output transformer. Of course, being that he was still awaiting the trannys at the time the VTLs went to me, he wouldn't have been able to do any direct comparisions of his results with the old amps he said he missed somewhat. Even so, the amps I got cost about half what his new ones did (in retail terms), so I wouldn't be surprised if there was utlimately some improvement. Maybe I'll email him and ask him how everything came out in the end.
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