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Bridging an amplifier

I recently watched a YouTube video, a few years old, that featured Flemming Rasmussen, the highly regarded founder and engineer for Gryphon (now retired I believe). Flemming was speaking of his class A monoblock amplifiers in the Antileon Evo, Colloseum and Mephisto. Flemming was expressing his disdain for Monoblocks that are actually 2 internally bridged amplifiers, (such as DNA 500,Clayton M300s and also class A Luxman that can be used as Monoblocks in the BTL mode (bridged tied load), calling these types of Monoblocks inferior and not true Monoblocks. He claims dedicated Monoblocks where all push pull transistors are paralleled, are vastly superior to summing the two channels via bridging (antiphase summing). I’d love to know if most audiophiles and engineers agree with Flemming. I have owned and found both the DNA Monoblocks and Clayton M300 Monoblocks to sound excellent, and a friend uses two M-800A Luxman class A amplifiers in bridged tied load mode (BTL switch) with great clarity and power. Thank you for your thoughts!
audiobrian
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
It's all out there to search, Al has also given some good info on it as well, above. If all you need is watt's then bridging is the way to go. 

Cheers George
bigjoe's avatar
bigjoe
693 posts
 
I own both dedicated mono design amps as well as 2 channel amps ive bridged into a single channel, i even have a pair of monoblocks whos design is a 2 channel amp that's internally bridged at the factory and sold in singles as a mono amp ,ive found no design to be superior , for my ears much depends on synergy between amp & preamp as well as proper impedance matching monoblocks to the load a speaker presents at its lowest part of the curve ,case in point ,on my 8 ohm speakers my best sounding monoblocks are a pair of Mcintosh Mc-252s bridged for 500 watt @8 ohm amps when compared to my 1200 8ohm watt factory designed Mcintosh Mc-1201 monoblocks , with 4 ohm loads my factory bridged Emotiva XPR-1 monoblocks blow the pants off of the Mc-252s i run in mono as well as the purpose built Mc-1201s & Jeff Rowland true monoblocks , with my maggies my class D true monoblock Jeff Rowland amps sound better than my other amps, even better than the 2 channel amps i cannot bridge , i do believe the guy who wrote the article has went a bit off the deep end .
audiobrian OP
186 posts
 
Hi bigjoe.

I agree with you. Although there are some technical/electrical drawbacks to bridging, if implemented well it can sound as great as any non bridged design. Years back, reviewer Peter Montcrief named his two best sounding solid state amplifiers in the world, the McCormack DNA-500 and the Clayton Audio S-2000, both just happen to be dedicated balanced bridged design Monoblocks.... expert implementation seems to be most critical. Thanks
audiobrian OP
186 posts
 
For those interested:

http://www.iar-80.com

Just one reviewers opinion.
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 
Audiobrian, anybody who thinks those are the best sounding SS amps out there needs to have their Haldol doses increased. Not that they are bad but certainly not the best. Find me a bridged amp that sounds as good as a Pass 600.8 or Parasound JC-1 not to mention the Gryphon and Soulution Mono amps. Or even the Manley Neo amps or any of the Atma-sphere mono amps. Can’t do it. Not even the giant killer AHB2 can do it. 
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