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


I closed the cable and fuse thread because the trolls were making a mess of things. I hope they dont find me here.

I design Tube and Solid State power amps and preamps for Music Reference. I have a degree in Electrical Engineering, have trained my ears keenly to hear frequency response differences, distortion and pretty good at guessing SPL. Ive spent 40 years doing that as a tech, store owner, and designer.
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Perhaps someone would like to ask a question about how one designs a successfull amplifier? What determines damping factor and what damping factor does besides damping the woofer. There is an entirely different, I feel better way to look at damping and call it Regulation , which is 1/damping.

I like to tell true stories of my experience with others in this industry.

I have started a school which you can visit at http://berkeleyhifischool.com/ There you can see some of my presentations.

On YouTube go to the Music Reference channel to see how to design and build your own tube linestage. The series has over 200,000 views. You have to hit the video tab to see all.

I am not here to advertise for MR. Soon I will be making and posting more videos on YouTube. I don’t make any money off the videos, I just want to share knowledge and I hope others will share knowledge. Asking a good question is actually a display of your knowledge because you know enough to formulate a decent question.

Starting in January I plan to make these videos and post them on the HiFi school site and hosted on a new YouTube channel belonging to the school.


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I 100% agree that there are many more excellent sounding lower power amps than higher power amps.  Most appear to be between 20 and 40 watts.  I have a voltage regulated (non-ultralinear) 35 watt Dynaco 70 that is superb sounding.  I have also have the Macintosh MC 30s, Yamaha CR 620 and have heard the Macintosh 225 and 240 and several Marantz 1970s receivers.  Some favor the tubey sounding Fisher 400 and 500 receivers (I own them but don't find them as resolving as the above mentioned Dynaco, Macintosh and Yamaha units).   
Roger considers the Marantz 8b superior to the Model 9. The Model 9 is sure cool looking, though. The old-style Atma-Sphere faceplates remind me of the Model 9's (except the Atma's had ultra-cool champagne anodizing, my all-time favorite). Coincidence, Ralph? ;-) 
No- I liked the styling of the Marantz. I was also influenced by ARC. Both of these can be seen on the front panel of our old M-50 amplifier. But people wanted the tubes on the front, so we turned the chassis around when we introduced the MkIIs. The MA-2s still have a front panel though.


We still do our anodized finishes at the same place ARC used to do them.

I think the model 8 was a better sounding unit too. The 9 IMO only worked acceptably in Triode mode. Side note: when I was first showing my employees what I wanted for hand-wiring quality, I showed them the insides of a model 8b we were renovating at the time and told them this was the quality of workmanship we had to meet and beat.
Ralph, your champagne anodizing is a MUCH better version than that of ARC. When I got my SP-3, D51, and D75, I was disappointed with the rather garish gold anodizing of their faceplates. Your champagne is more like that of Conrad-Johnson, understated and elegant, very tasteful. And your build quality is far higher than that of ARC, imo. Plus, no circuit boards!