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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
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

knotscott
928 posts
 

Like anything, UL and triode will be a bit different with every amp and every system.  With my system with the Dynaco/VTA mods, triode is more refined with a more concise soundstage.  Especially notable with simple vocals, piano, and string, etc.  It's tougher to tell with more layered complex recordings.  My amps are monoblocks, so once in a while for giggles I'll flip one amp to UL, rebalance, and leave the other amp in triode....ultra triode?   laugh  

 

 

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