Does anyone care to ask an amplifier designer a technical question? My door is open.

@jcder, everyone is going to recommend his own pre in answer to your question. Here are a couple to consider: There is a Hovland HP-100 listed on Audiogon right now (at an asking price of $2350), a fine line stage (I heard it in Brooks Berdan’s reference system for quite a while). The EAR-Yoshino 868L line stage, another good one, occasionally pops up for around $3,000. The 868 has one true balanced (via transformer) XLR input, if that matters to you. EAR Designer Tim de Paravicini very much strikes me as the UK’s equivalent of Roger Modjeski; old school EE’s with good ears and lots of knowledge and talent.

Yes the Beveridge RM-1 with RM-2 power supply. A legendary component in my opinion with 2 phono inputs. Roger broke the mold with this one. If you have a chance to buy one get it, they show up for around $1000 on eBay. It will most likely need to be refurbished but all in you will have a full function line stage that will rival anything out there regardless of cost.

Roger, really appreciate your efforts with this post.  But, a question -

"Over 100 watts is only justified by either high listening levels or insensitive speakers or both together. Excess headroom is a myth."

I and many others find headroom seems to relate to clean (undistorted) dynamics.  Would you expand on your myth statement, why you feel that is the case?  Maybe the key is "excess"?

@amb3cog

I’m willing to bet that Burning Amp alone will help. I know you can’t just spend, spend, spend, but maybe some directed advertising on Facebook towards people that are very interested in learning electronics would help. You might pick up done young people struggling to afford College? Something different should be tried, either way. Because if the word doesn’t get out. No one will ever know. It’s that simple. I only found out about the school, because I was on your site, for instance. I think it’s a great thing you’re offering, either way, and bless you for doing so sir.

Thanks for the complilment and advice. I have never looked into advertising and that is a good idea. I might give FB a try but I am not happy with what Mr. Z had done and how he is handling it. Horribly irresponsible. Ive bought puts on FB. I think FB has been a miserable failure. I think the stock price is reflecting that. 

Does anyone have suggestions on an alternative site to use for adverts? There must be lots.

I put up flyers all over the EE department at UC Berkeley. They have a total of 1000 undergrad and grad students. The flyers stayed up for several months, i checked. I got not one response. I know what is going on there and its sad. I have visited the labs, lectures, was invited by one prof to announce my school in front of his class of 150 students. I think I got one from the 150 to visit.

College students these days just want to get a diploma. Its their ticked to a high paying job. I like the Asian students, they are bright, however they might get a better education back home. They come here for the prestiege of a UC or Stanford degree. I went to Stanford, it was disappointing. UVA was far better.

The grad students who write the labs keep using the negative input of an op amp. This is not what we do in industry and it only takes a minuite to show why we dont, its noisy. Whats the chance of me correcting that? Similar labs are going at UC Davis and perhaps all UC. Thats a lot of students.

@pryso

Roger, really appreciate your efforts with this post. But, a question -

"Over 100 watts is only justified by either high listening levels or insensitive speakers or both together. Excess headroom is a myth."

I and many others find headroom seems to relate to clean (undistorted) dynamics. Would you expand on your myth statement, why you feel that is the case? Maybe the key is "excess"?

Thank you for bringing this up. Ive been waiting for this.

Answer is I cant say what you are hearing. I dont know if you are clipping sometimes or not. If you have a scope or peak reading voltmeter you could find out.

Now here is what i DO know. A 1000 watt amplifier played at 1 watt is likely overkill, though I had one Japanese man express this headroom is necessary. I responded, large amplifiers played at low levels may not be as good as smaller amplifiers. Many people feel small amplifiers sound better when they are enough.

Amplifier designers have to commit certain "sins" when making really big amps. High power tubes amps are enormous with enormous transformers. Take the JA200 for instance. Theres a big sin in that amp. It plays 200 watts cleanly up to 500 hz or so. As you go up the power bandwith is reduced every octave. At 20 KHZ it does just a few watts. I have measured it. Go look at the 4 chassis of that amplifier. Yet this ampifier has good reviews and hardly anyone knows about this problem. Did JA get hold of one? IDK?

Tube amplifiers scale up pretty much pound for pound for watt. 500 watts is 5 times heavier than 100 watts. Again look at the Jadis. BTW that power rolloff is entierly intentional. I could easily modify that amp to have full power to 20KHZ. The transformers are excellent. Why they chose to roll off the power I dont know, I dont speak French. Im happy to fix one up for anyone interested.

So i ask you, how many watts do you have and how many are used at your average listenting level. The headroom on CDs is well defined and easy to measure. The ones that play loud likely have 10 db. Good ones have 20dB not much more or they sound too soft.

There is a lot to this question so lets hear back from you and others.