OTL amplifiers


Can anyone explain to me, in layman's terms, the advantages or disadvantages of OTL amplifiers? I have heard a lot about them, but have not listened to any to date. I am really a tube fan and want to reach tube nirvana and don't know if OTL is the way to go. Are they suitable for all types of music? Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
dfrigovt
Wellfed your points are well taken. I however agree with Trelja in my experience with the autoformers. I found the 1.37 setting the best. 2X was ok but anything above that the sound became whiter or more solid statish losing much of the natural sweetness intrinsic to the Transcendent amp I used it with. Indeed the bass was improved. It seems this device designed with the Atma-sphere in mind decidedly didn't do what I needed in my system. I liked it at first but found myself over time going back to direct most of the time. What I needed was more OTL power.

I feel the zero autoformer is a very well priced well designed product that will benefit some systems more than others but bear in mind that the character of the sound changes the higher the multiplier.
I have heard reports that OTL's like Tenors have been known to blow out speakers due to the lack of there being a (transformer, buffering factor?) Any truth to this?

Hi!
The Zero Autoformers have another great advantage: they won't alow that amps blow out your speakers. I believe that was one of the idea's when constructing the Zero's.
I agree that results with them vary, but do try them... I'd rather invest in them (because of their universality-they work even with solid state amps!) then in speaker cables of that price. But that's just my five cents...
Cheers!
The alternative 2X setting I refer to use the white and black leads attached to the speaker binding posts and the blue and yellow leads attached to the amplifer posts. This configuration brought back the "magic" OTL sound, but resulted in a small loss on the bass side of things. If I only had one pair of ZEROs or did not have bi-wire capability I would have easily, and happily settled for this setup and accepted the loss of bass output for the improvements gained elsewhere.

Not entirely content to leave it at that however, I contacted Paul Speltz and he suggested I try a second pair in standard 2X mode on the woofers and like I said before, the results were phenomenal. The best of both worlds and then some.

I don't know why Paul doesn't promote this setup more at his website. I don't know if my results would be achieved on other speaker models, but on N.E.A.R. 50Me II loudspeakers the gains were absolutely awesome.

One method I never tried, but would be curious to hear the results of, would be to bi-wire using just one pair of ZEROs.

On the N.E.A.R.s I would use the configuration described above on the high frequencies and another alternative 2X such as brown/green or gray/green on the low frequencies. If anyone tries this, you might as well try the reverse as well, brown/green or gray/green on the highs and white/black on the lows, to see if there are any gains.

Refer to Group 2 Configurations at the ZeroImpedance.com website to see a diagram of the alternative configuration options I refer to.

I know that this bi-wire with one pair of ZEROs is an option, but for safety, please check with Paul Speltz before trying.
Dfrigovt, since much of what has been posted here is way outside the scope of what you originally requested (especially from me) and is probably very confusing, let me answer your question more directly as pertains to Atma-Sphere M-60 Mk. II.2 amps.

Advantages: high-resolution, effortless sound; extended in both directions, rich (but not syrupy) and dimensional

Disadvantages: speaker choices are more limited, unless you use a large OTL or a corrective device like the ZERO autoformer, and possibly heat (hasn't been a problem for me though)

Since there are plenty of excellent speakers out there that work well with OTL's, I don't see OTL's as being problematic in any appreciable way.

BTW, do you have a particular speaker that you would like to pair with an OTL?