@atmasphere , I am not arguing with what anyone is saying; I have stated before that I am illiterate on these subjects. I was simply directly quoting from the owners manual that came with my amp when I bought it. Although he didn't write it that way, is it possible that what i quoted was meant to only be applied to triode operation?
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.
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@immatthewj I was commenting more in the fact that the manual was either poorly written or misleading. I doubt the 'triode only' thing since it is a UL design. The best interpretation is there's no global feedback. But there certainly is local feedback.
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@atmasphere , that could be; this subject is over my head so I will not offer an opinion.. As far as the UL design, Mr. Had does state at least a couple of times in that manual how much he likes triode. He even refers to himself as "a triode crazed audiophile" in that manual and at one point goes on to say that this amp "sounds better" when operated in triode. |
Many years ago I had a tube amp w/8 EL34s that I had the mfr mod to allow each power tube to be triode/ultralinear switchable (Roger Mojeski's RM-9). The speakers were Vandersteen's then TOTL, the Vandersteen-4s. I greatly preferred triode mode with both TT and digital sources (especially with digital sources). Triode mode pushed the inherent musicality and realism of those big Vandy's as far it they went. I never felt the urge to use ultranlinear. What's more, I didn't need to: the internal subs of the speakers were powered by a separate amp, a 200 wpc SS amp. |
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