Pass Labs XA30.5 and ModWright KWA150

A Pass amp that works a bit more like a tube amp, especially in terms of damping AND being a very easy load for the tube preamp would be the First Watt Aleph J if you can find one used. I think it works extremely well with smooth and highish impedance speakers (tube friendly speakers).

If you want tube-lie or better amp then look at Spectron amplifiers. One of the reviewers wrote:

"...when the original Musician III arrived for a review, I took the opportunity to ship the [VTL] Siegfrieds back to the factory"
- W. Donnelly

I amnot saying "run and buy it ASAP" but investigate, IMO, you must

All The Best
Rafael

"Tube-like to me means: Dimensionality of images, bloom and decay, a sense of instruments actually present... "

According to these criteria Spectron is the best "tube-like " ss amplifier I auditioned or owned. (There are very few other ss amps standing at this level or may be above but all are much more expensive)

Two people disagreed with this statement:

1) Semi who found combination of Athma-Shere and Merlin speakers to be better: YES, I AGREE WITH YOU. I visited Merlin room at last RMAF where it was matched with another OTL amp, Joule-Electra - YES, it is match made in heaven. BUT - OTL demands large degree of maintaince and OTL cannot drive well speakers with low impedance. For these reasons I do not own OTL and I presume many, many others too.

2) Zybar who compared it to simply excellent BAT VK150SE (at $18k retail, last time I checked). In order to compare more or less fairly "apple-to-apple" he must have Spectron monoblocks with all upgrades (about $11k last time I checked) and he did not specify it (yet...).

Mike

Mike,

Please go back and re-read my posts.

First, I compared the Spectron to Atma-Sphere amps, not BAT.

Secondly, I compared both the Atma-Sphere MA-1's (which are around $18k) and the Atma-Sphere M-60's (which are similarly priced to the Spectron amp). So there was indeed an apples to apples comparison in regards to price.

I also had Pass gear (XA30.5)in which to my ears had more "tube like" (as defined above) qualities than the Spectron.

One last note...yes, OTL amps do require more careful speaker matching, but you can use minimize that issue by using a Speltz Zero Autoformers.

Regards,

George

Hi Zybar,

Yes, you are correct. While I do stand by my writing but I have toi admit an error: instead of "Semi" I wrote "Zybar" and vice-versa.

As I said I love sound of OTL amp when speaker can be matched appropritely. What is rather strange for me is your statement:

"One last note...yes, OTL amps do require more careful speaker matching, but you can use minimize that issue by using a Speltz Zero Autoformers. "

So designer of OTL amp believes that output transformer is BAD (for his varous reasons) and did everything he could to create...OTL (OutputTransferLess) amp and you saying basically to him - you did huge job to eliminate output transformer but I will install it into the signal path ANYWAY and destroy your intention and your goal...and your sound.

You surely has any right to do whatever you want but.... logically isn;t it better just to buy amp WITH output transformers already installed and voiced by the designer? Here we mentioned, for example VK150SE amp... there are others also good but less expensive