Best Balanced Tube Amp To Pair With Meridian G02?

Ralph, is the S-30 equal in sound quality to the M60's? I read something a while back that stated that, other than the wattage differences, all Atmasphere power amplifiers had the same sound quality.

Just wondering as I wait for either the M60's MkII.3, or an S-30 MK.II to show up for sale. I would then plan to send the unit(s) to you to upgrade to 3.1 status.

The more that I think about it, and given a great deal of input from audio aficianados here, and elsewhere, my speakers would almost certainly be driven better by 60wpc than 30. Which means the M60 MKII.3 are clearly my best option. And, having given this a tremendous amount of thought, that is what I want, heat be damned.

The issue now, is that I've seen these on Audiogon no more than a couple times in the past few years. They were only made from October 2003, until December 2005. And I really just don't like the look of the newer, wide chassis.

Sadly, this makes it almost certain that I will have to make a secondary choice of amplifiers to purchase. And I really, really, want an Atma-sphere. Based on that, I can hold out for, say, six months, but after that, well, I will have to make a hard choice and actually buy something.

Ralph, thanks for the explanation on the modification. Can you elaborate a little more based on the following:

First, is what you describe the same technique that is referred to as cathodyne? From what I have gathered from this technique the signal is applied to the grid, one side taken from plate and the other phase on its cathode. I have also heard that there could be issues where the impedances are not the same. For example, plate source Z is say 20K and cathode source is 1K. In this situation the problem is at high frequencies, capacity overtakes the plate side and it rolls off highs, while the cathode side still works. The signal is then an algebraic sum of the original signal.

I'm not an engineer so I'm trying to digest this because it appears to be a very simple and inexpensive mod, but then I have to wonder why more people don't do it this way versus using an input transformer. Any additional comments and insights you have would be appreciated.

Clio09, the circuit you described is for a phase splitter in an amplifier. What I was talking about is something different.

For example, usually you are driving such a circuit with a single-ended voltage amplifier. The mod I mentioned is to that voltage amplifier.

I think that the reason no-one is using this circuit is that they don't know that they can. I've done it a bunch of times and it always works...

After some further research, I seem to find myself back at square one. As noted in previous posts, I had more or less made up my mind to go with one of the rare pairs of the longer style Atma-Sphere M60's when they appeared used on Audiogon(or elsewhere). The big concern was how long that wait would be. I can be patient for a while, but not forever, as I have a preamp sitting in its box unable to be used.

Earlier this week, I had an unplanned business trip to Chicago materialize. Since I was to be there over two nights, I contacted an old friend I had not seen in some years who then owned a pair of M60's. It turned out that he still owned them, and had upgraded them to 3.1 status. This gave me a recent opportunity to listen to them, as a reference point. I must say that I loved the sonic qualities of the amps. To me, they did not truly sound like other tube amplifiers (and I have heard a lot)or like solid state, simply like pure music. I was also amazed by how well each instrument and vocal was reproduced, and by the depth, and quality of bass reproduction. My friend is associated with a large group of Chicago area audio enthusiasts, and one of them that he contacted even brought his pair of Silverline 17's (virtually the same as my 17.5's) so that I could hear the amplifiers with them (THANKS Fred!)

And now, on to the unfortunate part. My friends system is in a room approximately 11x15. After perhaps two hours of listening, it had become very warm. And this was on a day when his home thermostat was off due to the 59 degree outside temps. His thermostat was at 65 orior to our listening session. My listening room at home is a mere 10x10. I am certain the heat put out by the M60's would make them imposible to use except during the winter months. No air conditioner could cope with it, Im afraid. We did try Ralph's recommendation, and we removed four of the power tubes of the M60's to see what difference that made. While the heat output dropped noticeably, the Silverline 17's sounded much less optimal with the decrease to 30wpc. They really seemed to benefit from the full 60wpc. The Dynaudio drivers, I expect.

Give the above, and my room size, I think I am now forced to go back and look at other options due solely to my room size limitations.

Ralph, if you happen to be continuing to read this discussion, your M60's truly sounded superlative. The ONLY thing keeping me from picking up a used pair and likely being happy with them forever, is the small size of my listening room, and the heat issue.