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
I have been following this thread and feel it’s time to post, seeing you have now called George a troll for the second time.

George has nothing to gain from these posts, as he does not build amps or speakers, AS YOU DO! He has presented nothing but facts, and left out statements of linked reviews you presented.

And as for my own experience with the Zero Autotransformer, I’ve tried them many times, and on a matched amp/speaker combo’s, they are a big step backward in sound quality IMO. They are as George puts it “a band-aid fix”, for people who have a mismatched amp/speaker combo that cannot be driven correctly - yet have no desire to change either to correct the mismatch and fix the underlying problem.

Sure, they can live with what they have using the Zero, but that will introduce another set of problems that then affect the sound quality. Is it worth $1140 for a band-aid fix??????? Or should they fix the mismatch problem, THAT is the real question????
I have been following this thread and feel it’s time to post, seeing you have now called George a troll for the second time.

George has nothing to gain from these posts, as he does not build amps or speakers, AS YOU DO! He has presented nothing but facts, and left out statements of linked reviews you presented

And as for my own experience with the Zero Autotransformer - I’ve tried them many times, and on matched amp/speaker combo’s, they are a big step backward in sound quality. They are, as George puts it, “a bandaid fix”. For people who have a mismatched amp speaker combo that cannot be driven correctly, yet have no desire to change either and fix the mismatch correctly.

They can live with what they have using the Zero, but they will then introduce another set of problems that affect the sound quality. Is it worth $1140 for a bandaid fix??????? Or should they fix the mismatch problem, that is the real question????
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.