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Amp shootout.....Tenor 75wi verses Berning ZH270

in a recent thread there was much discusion of the above 2 amps, whether the Berning was indeed an OTL, and which one might be better.

i have no opinion as to whether the Berning is an OTL. but today a Berning ZH270 owner brought his amp over to compare to my pair of Tenor 75wi's. my system is OTL friendly, with easy to drive speakers, so the Berning's acknowledged advantage in driving difficult loads was neutralized.

these amps have very similar power, the Tenor is 75 watts into 8 ohms, the Berning is 70 watts into 8 ohms. otherwise it is not really a fair comparison....the Tenors are $19900 a pair, the Berning $4500, the Tenors weigh 70 pounds each, the Berning weighs about 10 pounds.....it seems like Goliath verses David. the result is somewhat closer than that.

we played three different discs and each of 3 people listened to their disc in the sweetspot. the Berning owner felt that the Tenor had a more dimentional sound, deeper soundstage but felt the Berning was equal in bass extension and detail retreival. the independent listener felt the Berning was excellent for the money but not in the league of the Tenor in any paramter. my perception was similar to the independent listner; that the Berning, at $4500, is amazing in it's top to bottom excellence, dynamics and musicality.....but....does not do things like the Tenor. the sense of space, detail in the soundstage, texture and microdynamics of the Tenor are at a whole different level.....and they better be for $15000 more.

like the Berning owners, i am a shameless Tenor lover and consider the Tenors better than any other amp i have heard at any price, assuming a reasonably easy load to drive.

the Berning is more like a $8k to $10k amplifier.....and Berning owners should be justifiably proud of their amps.

i did think the Berning had slightly more bass slam than the Tenor, but with much less bass articulation and extension than the Tenor.

we spent the rest of the enjoyable afternoon listening to some great vinyl......an enjoyable time had by all.
mikelavigne
mikelavigne OP
2,200 posts
 
Allan, hopefully, you don't think i'm an audio snob....i certainly don't want to be. some comments in this thread mention that possibly Tenor owners are in another class or something like that.....i don't see it that way at all....just because you don't spend $100k on audio doesn't mean that you couldn't......or that $100k guarantees you audio happiness.....or $5k means you can't get close to the music.

what counts to me is passion and pursuit of musical truth.....and the enjoyment of that effort. more $$$ CAN give you choices you may not otherwise have.....but the choices have to be the right ones.....for you.

in my pursuit of musical nirvanna i had spent some big dollars but still was unfullfilled......then i heard a friends system much more modest than mine that gave me much more musical pleasure and involvement....i realized what i was missing.....at that point i reoriented myself to another direction that has resulted in much more enjoyment without many more dollars.

yes, i am shameless in my enjoyment of my system....but not at the expense of any other music lover's system.
tireguy
1,964 posts
 
Mike- it is shameless!! my technics tt is far superiour to that rockport junk you use! What ever it takes to make one pleased with there system, emotional envolvement, to me a system what has good PRaT is usually a good system overall-I haven't heard many that I feel really get my foot tapping and get me as involved as my rhythmless self can be :) I just spent more on an interconnect then I did on my first mid-fi system-I am really starting to enjoy the sound though, so its worth it. btw I don't even own a turn table-but if I did I would use dental floss for the belt(can't afford that air drive stuff yet) with many knots in it!

And down with the berning cross :) had to throw my .02 in-lol I don't own tenor or berning and I have never heard the berning so I am just making a statement in jest-don't wave your berning torch in my direction!! don't want to get flammed.....ok I am really done now.

~Tim
allanbhaganinfo
121 posts
 
Tim, Berning amps are like a bad virus, just come close and you got one :)
allanbhaganinfo
121 posts
 
in my pursuit of musical nirvanna i had spent some big dollars but still was unfullfilled......then i heard a friends system much more modest than mine that gave me much more musical pleasure and involvement...

Mike, I am so glad you said this, it makes me feel even more so that you do now have something really special going and not one of those, I spent it, they told me it was the best and it is, types.
Maybe that's why the Berning owners were so fast to disbelieve, these sort of money systems are really well known to everyone, well except to the guys with the money, as not being musical and pretty disappointing at times.
The Berning owners know what they have and I could tell you, I and others have done a few other shoot outs with more expensive well regarded amps and they were nowhere in the class as the Bernings.

So I think we both learned a couple things and some people were surprised in both camps.
The Berning camp must realize that there are products in the mega dollar class that are not a component status thing only and has real audio value.
Some in the Tenor camp has to come to grips with the fact that the Berning designs are at par to anything, it's easier to build a phenomenal amp at any cost, than to build a great amp at a steal.
twl
3,251 posts
 
As an add to Allan's post, I think that the ZOTL design is the major reason why the amp can perform much higher than it costs. ZOTL allows much fewer parts and eliminates the real costly ones like the big$ output transformer and large banks of tubes. So you get the best of both worlds, lower cost and high performance. I hope David brings out a cost-no-object flagship amp that will get him the recognition he deserves for his innovative design. That would be an unbelievable shootout!
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