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Tube Amp for Martin Logan Speakers

Hi, I love tube sound through my Martin Logan Aerius-i fronts and Cinema-i center. I currently have a Butler 5150 which is a hybrid, but it busted on me and would cost $700 to fix. I've had china stereo tube amps that were pretty good and gave true tube sound, but not enough drive for higher volumes. I live in condo, so not like I can blast music anyways but still. I got the Butler because I wanted 5 channel tube sound for home theatre (The piercing sound from my Denon 3801 receiver was not pleasant to my ears). It appears there are only three multi-channel tube amps around, from Mcintosh, Butler 5150, and Dared DV-6C. The latter two are hybrids, and the last one was one of the worst tube amps i've ever heard. I have no clue why 6Moons gave the Dared a 2010 award, but maybe it's because it produces only 65W.

So since multichannel tube amps are hard to come by, and they tend to be hybrid, I was thinking maybe it would be best to get three true tube monoblocks to power my fronts. Thing is I wonder if they will be underpowered for my speakers, and not sure which ones are decent for the price. Maybe China made ones would suffice, and they still go for pretty expensive price. I'm wondering if anybody knows of a decent powerful tube monoblock that is affordable, because I can't pay $3000 per block. or maybe best to just repair my Butler. Thing is, I'm not confident that it is reliable. The tubes are soldered in which is weird, and i've taken it to a couple repair guys who both said that the design is not good, because it's very tight inside and more susceptible to being fried from DC voltage areas. it's too sensitive.

Any suggestions for tube monoblocks, even if china made ones? the holy grail for me would be Mcintosh tube amp, but they are hard to come by. Thanks.

smurfmand70
bifwynne
2,206 posts
 
Ralph and others, with respect, do you know for a **fact** that MLs or Quads were **designed** to be driven by a Constant Voltage Paradigm (SS) amp or a Power Paradigm (traditional high'ish output impedance tube) amp?

Seems to me that just because they work "ok" with one type amp or another, with or without ZEROs, doesn't answer the threshold of whether the sonic presentation of these ESL speakers will be colored if driven by the one type of amp or another.

Or ... are you saying the relationship between an amp's output impedance and an ESL's varying impedance plot is simply not a relevant consideration to the ESL's sonic output because of some unique or different electrical characteristic peculiar to ESLs??

Thanks
tomcy6's avatar
tomcy6
2,589 posts
 
Or you could check the ML website. According to ML the hybrids can be driven by amps outputting between 20, yes 20, and 500 wpc.

Maximum power draw is 200 wpc.

Rather than argue theory, give them a listen, then you'll know what amps they make beautiful music with. You may be surprised.
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
Like a pair of these classic, Class A Mark Levinson ML2's 25w monoblocks.
http://www.wtconcept.com/levinsonml2/


25w into 8ohm
50w into 4ohm
100w into 2ohm
200w into 1ohm
400w into .5ohm

There's 20watts and then there's 20watts, "no tone control behaviour with these", dead flat frequency response drive to any speaker from .5ohm to 100ohm loading.

Cheers George
bifwynne
2,206 posts
 
George, again with respect, all your last post tells me is that the Levinson amp is a Constant Voltage Paradigm amp which doubles watts as ohms halves. Your post also states that the Levinson can deliver power into a near short, .5 ohms.

But that doesn't answer my question. I'll restate it -- did the designers of ML and QUAD ESLs design these speakers with the expectation that they would be driven by a SS - Voltage Paradign or tube Power Paradigm amp?? Put aside the difficulty of the load and the amp's ability to drive the beast.

Just simply what did the designers have in mind -- low output impedance (say less than .1 ohms) SS or "high'ish" output impedance (say 3 or 4 ohms or more) tube?? Once we get this answewr, then we can start to respond to the OP's Q.
unsound
7,329 posts
 
http://www.stereophile.com/content/martinlogan-aerius-loudspeaker-measurements-1998
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