Gwho, I realize that the budget is an issue but one thing you will have to face it its really hard to get Sound Labs to sing if you have transistors. Transistors as you know try to double power as the impedance of the load is halved, which is another way of saying that they cut power in half if the impedance is doubled.
With the Sound Labs both ways of looking at this are a concern. On the bottom end you can't make power, on the top end there is a tendency to make too much. To give you an idea, a 150 watt tube amp can easily keep up with a 600 watt transistor amp on this speaker due to this issue. A 600 watt transistor amp will only make about 150 watts on a Sound Lab due to the impedance. A tube amp will not loose so much power on this account.
It might help to understand something about how ESLs operate, which is to say that they work much better with an amplifier that behaves as a power source rather than a voltage source.
Don't worry if you did not understand that last sentence. Just read this article, its a quick read and there is almost no math :)
http://www.atma-sphere.com/Resources/Paradigms_in_Amplifier_Design.php
So if you plan to bi-amplify, you might be able to do just fine with a tube amp that makes only about 60 watts for the top end. This depends somewhat on your room. The reason people use high power transistors is because of the impedance in the bass, while a 200 watt tube amp is usually enough power in many listening situations.
Now if you apply the mods that I mentioned earlier, which are easy to do, the speaker gets a lot easier to drive. Customers have reported that our MA-1 had unlimited power (could not clip them) in their system after they did the mod. IOW the driver is fairly efficient, most of the problem of drivability has to do with the back panel. So if you do this and you bi-amplify, a 60 watt tube amp might do the trick, and will sound better than a transistor amp on that load.
Something to think about!
With the Sound Labs both ways of looking at this are a concern. On the bottom end you can't make power, on the top end there is a tendency to make too much. To give you an idea, a 150 watt tube amp can easily keep up with a 600 watt transistor amp on this speaker due to this issue. A 600 watt transistor amp will only make about 150 watts on a Sound Lab due to the impedance. A tube amp will not loose so much power on this account.
It might help to understand something about how ESLs operate, which is to say that they work much better with an amplifier that behaves as a power source rather than a voltage source.
Don't worry if you did not understand that last sentence. Just read this article, its a quick read and there is almost no math :)
http://www.atma-sphere.com/Resources/Paradigms_in_Amplifier_Design.php
So if you plan to bi-amplify, you might be able to do just fine with a tube amp that makes only about 60 watts for the top end. This depends somewhat on your room. The reason people use high power transistors is because of the impedance in the bass, while a 200 watt tube amp is usually enough power in many listening situations.
Now if you apply the mods that I mentioned earlier, which are easy to do, the speaker gets a lot easier to drive. Customers have reported that our MA-1 had unlimited power (could not clip them) in their system after they did the mod. IOW the driver is fairly efficient, most of the problem of drivability has to do with the back panel. So if you do this and you bi-amplify, a 60 watt tube amp might do the trick, and will sound better than a transistor amp on that load.
Something to think about!