Tube Amp for Martin Logan Speakers

Tradeontheweb, the ZERO does not affect the sound quality as you and George suggest.

How it actually works is that many tube amps have problems on ML speakers. In such cases, they are not going to work very well. The ZERO solves that, plain and simple.

Nor is it a bandaid- it is however a problem solver and this is a classic case of the kind of problem it was designed to solve. And just FWIW, I don't make a dime when Mr. Speltz sells a set of ZEROs and he sells them to more than just customers of ours.

This thread was established to ask the question of what tube amps will be suitable for ML speakers. A few will work fine without the ZERO, but many will not, and the ZERO represents a practical solution so that any amp with enough power otherwise can do the job.

George keeps pulling the thread off-topic by suggesting that a powerful transistor amp be employed; he also said that my suggestion of the ZERO was 'stupid', and did so without any experience whatsoever with their use.

Its true that I sell amplifiers, and its also true that I have a lot of experience and feedback from people who use the ZERO. I hope its OK if I walk the talk. We can be pretty sure that George does not- he is just here so far as I can tell to derail the topic. That is one of the ways you can identify the activity of a troll.

Now if you think that I should not be posting here because I sell amplifiers, that's fine, again just FWIW audio happens to be a hobby of mine and I like it. That is the reason I am here- and I have tried my best to help out people whenever I have found that my experience was useful (I started my career in 1974 repairing consumer electronics at the local Allied Radio service facility, where I got a lot of troubleshooting experience repairing all manner of tape machines, car stereos, receivers, tuners, shortwave radios and the like- that was how I put myself through school.)

So to answer your question, In A Perfect World, of course its 'way better to start with a good match, in that way you and I totally agree. But here is a little experience tidbit for you: over the last 30 years or so of business, I have found that you can recommend that till you are blue in the face and people will still go right ahead and put an amp and speaker combo together where it is really obvious that it is not going to work, for the simple reason that they like the speaker, and they like the amp and they want both at the same time.

People wanting to put a tube amplifier on a ML ESL is an excellent example of that.

**That** is why the ZERO is handy- you can have your cake and eat it too, and it allows for excellent performance (for example the ZERO has bandwidth from 2Hz to about 2MHz, which is wider bandwidth than most amplifiers...).

Again two different perspectives on how to get a good amp/speaker match.

To me the point is zeros are the best solution for ML with many tube amps. If you match up amp and speakers directly, zeros not needed.

Perhaps an "adaptor" would be a better technical term for what the zeros are. They would make for some fairly pricy "band aids", though the argument could be made that an adapter is a technical form of "band aid". Its mostly just semantics, some more agitating to some than others.

I recently auditioned a set of Manley Snappers with my ML Aeon i's and the combo with my ModWright SWL 9.0SE sounds absolutely superb! The Snappers are 100 WPC monoblocks that run in ultralinear mode - they are very tight and detailed in the lows and highs with no boom or grain and the midrange is to die for. They pair exceptionally well with the ModWright which is a very transparent tube-hybrid design. I have a fairly small-sized listening room and the Snappers have plenty of power to drive the Aeon i's - even for demanding rock and full orchestra pieces. Depending on your listening levels, I would highly recommend the Snappers as being a great match for MLs.

I certainly did not derail the topic Atmasphere, the OP asked for suggestions for tube amps to go with his Martin Logan speakers. I simply mentioned in my first post that they are a difficult load, no mention ever of him getting a SS amp ever, you are seeing things.

It was you Atmasphere that started spruiking on about the Zero from your first post, instead of guiding the OP correctly to a suitable amp.

It was also you Atmasphere that said, "that others said", (never implicating yourself) that the Zero is beneficial to all amps "even good solid state amps" into these kinds of loads.

You call me a troll twice now. Be careful Atmasphere, It almost looks like your shilling for the Zero, because your amps are the ones that need them the most, and visa versa, the Zero's need your amp's the most. as this quote from Paul Speltz from a TNT review of the Zero's

"Paul Speltz, a devotee of OTL amps, decided that he wanted to use his favourite DIY speakers with his OTL amp, but the nominal speaker impedance of 4 ohms wasn't a good match for his amp. With these thoughts in mind, Paul designed the ZERO Autoformer"

And then this quote from the TNT reviewer on the Zero's with amps that don't need them.

" The most important thing to remember about the ZERO Autoformers is: if there is no significant impedance mismatch, then there will be no real benefit to using the ZEROs. For example, when the Autoformers were connected as an impedance multiplier to a pair of B&W DM602 speakers there was little benefit for most tested amplifiers. In fact, the Le Amps and B&W combination sounded a little too bright with a strident sibilance that was distinctly irritating."

As I've always stated the Zero's add their own set of problems that can be clearly heard when the amp/speaker combo does not need them. (as the above reviewer found)
And to suggest they are beneficial for all amps into hard loads is an absolute misguided quote.

They are a bandaid fix for owners that do not want to change their amp or speakers so they are compatible.

Cheers George

Capdek, glad to read that your Manley amp does the job. Just curious, do you know what the output impedance of the amp is? Does the amp have different taps? I ask about taps because you mention it's ultra-linear.