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Thought on OTL tube amps

Just curious....how do these sound/perform compared to tube amps with transformers? Why do you prefer one or the other? Any particular brands of OTL amps you would recommend listening to? You can see my system on my tag here...listen mostly to rock and roll with a smattering of jazz and a bit of classical once in a while. The next stop on my amplifier adventure is an OTL model, and I have no intention of trading it for either SET I currently have, as I'm very happy with both. One of the ways I enjoy experimenting with different "sound" is by switching up the amps. Just trying to solicit some opinions, of which I know there are many strong ones here at A-Gon. Thanks in advance!
afc
almarg's avatar
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
Ralph (Atmasphere), I think that when Xonex77 refers to "increasing the impedance of a speaker" in the second sentence of his latest post, he is referring to increasing the load impedance seen by the amplifier, for a given speaker. But more significantly, in the first sentence of that post he appears to be envisioning that a Zero, when inserted between an amp and a speaker, would act as an inductor (rather than acting as an autoformer), with much of its inductance placed in parallel with the speaker's impedance. Resulting in a lower overall impedance, as seen by the amp, than if no Zero were present. Which as you'll certainly agree is not correct.

Best regards,
-- Al
 
xonex77
42 posts
 
Most OTL design  require high high impedance speakers,flaws in the design that these amps should work without these impedance matching,but not all OTL have these inherent disadvantage,I have an OTL using KT120 or VV52/300B output tubes  that welcomes 4 or 8 ohms  and a   full-range speakers.But if I insert  the ZERO, it  kills every thing.  
realdeal
63 posts
 
Sorry to say that the atmas are not stand alone OTL tube amp but need output transformer  plain and simple.
swampwalker's avatar
swampwalker
5,138 posts
 
realdeal- You are incorrect.  Many, many people use Atma OTLs direct to speakers that have the appropriate impedance characteristics, including myself, and they sound terrific.  Have you ever heard any of Ralph's amps driving the appropriate speakers? 
r_f_sayles's avatar
r_f_sayles
872 posts
 
realdeal, you are truly misinformed. I have run three different levels of the glorious Atma-Sphere OTL amplifiers S-30, M-60, MA-1 Silver on numerous loudspeakers with no issue whatsoever! All were played without autoformers, all were played through 8-16 ohm nominal impedance loads. It is abundantly clear that you have no proper, real life experience with these amplifiers. You really should do yourself (and the rest of us) a favor, and go out and get a good solid audition of these babies and then come back with an honest opinion.

Happy Listening!
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