Thought on OTL tube amps

Your missing the fact that I have owned many top end amps along with the Atma-sphere on these same speakers. So I could compare these other amps to the OTL and note any changes to my music. Trust me when I say I have heard many a great amp and the OTL was always the leader in body, weight, texture and realism. Again on direct comparison to other amps on the same speakers.

Surely if the OTL was thin compared to other great tube and SS amps I would have noticed it relative to the other amps.

Just my experience.

Every amp I've owned, including Joule and David Berning, sounded best with less, not more, negative feedback dialed in no matter what speaker I paired them with.

"In our approach (i.e. control theory, which I believe unique in this industry), we are trying to match not only hundreds but every speakers available to produce musically involving sound comparable to the sound of acustic music." - Spectron

Spectron, so what you are saying is that you want to sell your amps to the broadest market you can even though matching a less or no negative feedback amp with the right speaker produces better sonics for end users.

To Jj2468,

" Every amp I've owned, including Joule and David Berning, sounded best with less, not more, negative feedback dialed in no matter what speaker I paired them with"

and

".... matching a less or no negative feedback amp with the right speaker produces better sonics for end users "

suggest that not only Spectron but also Joule-Electra and David Burning (and many, many others) don;t know what they are doing by including negative feedback in their amplifier...

I actually suspect that they DO know what they are doing...
but you are free to share with them your experience with "negative feedback" and "no matter what speaker" so they will know, finally the truth.

Also, I beleive Spectron approach is not to use MORE negative feedback (he never said so) but to use ULTRA FAST negative feedback which are entirely different things...............

Its very difficult to compete with OTL in harmonic richness for any solid state amplifier. I admit it. We are doing our best but its difficult.

I went down a similar path 25 years ago. It got a lot easier when we got rid of the feedback. All I can suggest to anyone who has not tried the same is, make sure all your ducks are in a row- run the most linear circuit you can and put it on a speaker that allows you to hear the results without tonal issues. Only then can you see if you really want to go back.

OTLs don't run hot unless, like any other amplifier, they are biased to do so. Heat and good sound happen to go hand in hand; sure, you can get an amplifier that does not make a lot of heat to sound OK but again its the sort of thing that once you try using a little more bias and thus making more heat, you may not want to go back.

Afc, getting rid of the output transformer has nothing to do with hum.

There are several advantages to getting rid of the transformer: wider bandwidth and lower distortion. One advantage that most people don't think about is the fact that because the output transformer steps voltage down, in an OTL that translates to less gain needed. This is why its possible to build an OTL that has only one stage of gain.

The claims of longer tube life with sweep tubes may be true, but not particularly because of the voltages used. The voltages used in an OTL are so low that even conventional audio tubes would have a long life if that tube could work in an OTL.

As a user of OTL's for over 20 years, and now an Atma dealer, I might add that anyone who has heard Atma-sphere amps over the years, should try and here Ralph's latest designs.

As fantastic, detailed, quick and lifelike as they always were, they have simply reached a new plateau with the latest versions.

I just recently added dampers to the output tubes ( I have had dampers on the input tubes for years) I was surprised at the improvement yet again.

I am currently using the Zero autoformer with 4 ohm speakers.

Great tube OTL amps I think are they way off the audio merry go round.

Yes they need to be paired with appropriate speakers (the Zero increases the lot of compatible speakers) but once the amps are chosen, one may now look elsewhere in the system to make improvements, confident that the amps are making much of the potential in the signal.