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I hate to say it, but now I think maybe I like my amp in ultralinear mode versus triode

It's a Cary V-12; it features a dozen EL34s and each pair has a switch in between them that configures that pair to either triode or ultralinear. In full triode Cary listed in the specs that it makes 50 wpc and in full ultralinear 100 wpc.   For most of the twenty three years that I have owned this amp I have always felt that I preferred triode except for the occasions that I wanted to full out blast (it has literally been many years since I've felt the need to full out blast).

However, today I experimented with a couple of things in my system, and after listening to the same "Jazz Essentials" (compilation) red book CD a couple of times all the way through, the next thing I experimented with was switching to full ultralinear.

Maybe there was more "PRaT"?  (Which is a term I am still not sure that I completely grasp.)  Maybe . . . but what I do feel I noted for sure was that the imaging (particularly the imaging in the center) had more weight (meatier?) and was presented more forward, which I actually like.

I put a few more hours in (one more time with Jazz Essentials, Holly Cole/It Happened One Night, Dave's True Story/Sex Without Bodies, selected tracks from Rebecca Pigeon/The Raven and Once Blue/self titled and Norah Jones/Feels Like Home) after switching to ultralinear.  (No booze during this session, just coffee.) The jury is still out on this, but I do have some CDs in mind that I want to listen to over the next few days as I continue to evaluate.  

immatthewj
harpo75
104 posts
 

The V12 is a very nice amp especially when upgraded with really good coupling caps and some large value polypropylene caps bypassing the electrolytic caps.  Like 10uf to 20uf propylene’s.  This will really open it up. 
As far as UL or Triode it depends on taste, speakers, etc. especially with EL34’s.  Those are a typically warm sounding tube anyway and can sound very nice in triode.  Usually in UL you hear deeper bass, more extended highs and better detail.  Some amps may be different depending on the plate voltage they’re running the tubes at.  With KT88’s, KT-etc I usually prefer UL. 
Now if you’re talking real Triode tubes like 300b’s, 845’s, etc this is where triode gets really good.  300b’s are great with horns and such as for me anyway, they lack the deep bass and extreme highs and so with many dynamic speakers I don’t enjoy them fully as I feel there’s always a bit missing. 
Now you hook up a pair of 845 single ended amps like the Cary’s or something and wow!  Now you’re talking triode sound!

emergingsoul
1,159 posts
 

Isn’t ul mode solid State? Doesn’t it make sense that more would be involved for solid State and that it would sound a little bit 

I think use of the word ultra linear is a marketing term and kind of dumb

mulveling's avatar
mulveling
1,912 posts
 

Isn’t ul mode solid State? Doesn’t it make sense that more would be involved for solid State and that it would sound a little bit

I think use of the word ultra linear is a marketing term and kind of dumb

Out of all the possible questions to be asked on this forum, this is one I would never have expected before now. No, UL is not solid state. And it’s about as much a marketing term as "gravity" or "electromagnetism".

xenolith's avatar
xenolith
132 posts
 

atmasphere said: That’s a bit different from saying that it will ’work’; sure it will play but the output transformer should be optimized for a particular tube.

This is almost certainly the most salient content that this thread will produce. You want to hear great UL sound reproduction? Build an amp that uses KT77 output tubes...the only tube ever produced explicitly to run in UL mode, and specifically at a 43% winding tap and, of course, use output transformers...yep, with a 43% winding tap! As an aside, because the KT77 can handle big current, as long as you specify driver and splitter tubes that can handle big current (like 6BL& or 6BX7) and you use big inductors (on both input and output) to smooth that big current, you can do away with significant capacitance...this yields a very powerful, very dynamic, very fast and very linear, no, make that ultra linear amplifier!

Hate to break it to the assembled, but an amp that can run multiple tube types is not optimized for any of those tubes, neither is an amp that can run multiple topologies optimized for any of those topologies; IMO, an amp that does both represents the antithesis of high fidelity. I avoid them.

tablejockey
3,911 posts
 

"I think use of the word ultra linear is a marketing term and kind of dumb"

Some posters never fail to... Sigh/shoulder shrug

Keyboard  strokes away for basic amp electronics knowledge 

https://www.analogethos.com/post/screen-ultralinear

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