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Thought on OTL tube amps

Just curious....how do these sound/perform compared to tube amps with transformers? Why do you prefer one or the other? Any particular brands of OTL amps you would recommend listening to? You can see my system on my tag here...listen mostly to rock and roll with a smattering of jazz and a bit of classical once in a while. The next stop on my amplifier adventure is an OTL model, and I have no intention of trading it for either SET I currently have, as I'm very happy with both. One of the ways I enjoy experimenting with different "sound" is by switching up the amps. Just trying to solicit some opinions, of which I know there are many strong ones here at A-Gon. Thanks in advance!
afc
xonex77
42 posts
 
Most OTL design  require high high impedance speakers,flaws in the design that these amps should work without these impedance matching,but not all OTL have these inherent disadvantage,I have an OTL using KT120 or VV52/300B output tubes  that welcomes 4 or 8 ohms  and a   full-range speakers.But if I insert  the ZERO, it  kills every thing.  
realdeal
62 posts
 
Sorry to say that the atmas are not stand alone OTL tube amp but need output transformer  plain and simple.
swampwalker's avatar
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swampwalker
5,132 posts
 
realdeal- You are incorrect.  Many, many people use Atma OTLs direct to speakers that have the appropriate impedance characteristics, including myself, and they sound terrific.  Have you ever heard any of Ralph's amps driving the appropriate speakers? 
r_f_sayles's avatar
r_f_sayles
827 posts
 
realdeal, you are truly misinformed. I have run three different levels of the glorious Atma-Sphere OTL amplifiers S-30, M-60, MA-1 Silver on numerous loudspeakers with no issue whatsoever! All were played without autoformers, all were played through 8-16 ohm nominal impedance loads. It is abundantly clear that you have no proper, real life experience with these amplifiers. You really should do yourself (and the rest of us) a favor, and go out and get a good solid audition of these babies and then come back with an honest opinion.

Happy Listening!
realdeal
62 posts
 
The Zero autotransformer will not make  amplifier output impedance and the speaker input impedance higher as  Paul Speltz claim,It only decreases impedance on both input and output but it increase output  power due to less impedance and more current.There's a lot of Paul explanation about the Zero  are wrong.
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