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OTL Asylum OTL, Output Transformerless Amplifier User Group. |
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OTL Asylum OTL, Output Transformerless Amplifier User Group. |
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In Reply to: But then why have an OTL? posted by Dr. Philosophy on October 22, 2004 at 05:55:33:
This subject was discussed ad nauseam on ASOG, and the texts can be found in the archives I am sure. First of all, it's NOT a transformer, it's an autoformer. In an autoformer there are no discrete primary and secondary windings, no gap. Also, the Zero is stepping up the impedance by only 2X to 4X in most applications (can go above 4X but not recommended); this is a much lower ratio than that which must be achieved by an output transformer on a transformer-coupled tube amp, where the output impedance of the tubes is often hundreds or thousands of ohms. Therefore, the Zero could be and was designed for much higher bandwidth and much lower distortion than typical output transformers can achieve. (The numbers are on the Zero website, but I believe the Zero to be flat from below 10Hz to well beyond 100kHz and to have v low distortion.) Moreover, the Zero is placed at or nearest to the speaker, not at the amplifier output side, so the amp drives the cable and "sees" the autoformer/speaker as a unit. All that said, basically you are correct; if there were a plethora of top quality 16-ohm speakers available to us, there would be little need for Zeros. But there ain't. The Zero enables one to use an OTL on a wide variety of speakers and is quite transparent in my own system, set at 2.7X.
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Follow Ups
- Re: But then why have an OTL? - Lew 07:39:48 10/22/04 (3)
- Addendum - Lew 07:48:04 10/22/04 (2)
- I see, thanks...I assumed ... - Dr. Philosophy 07:58:25 10/22/04 (1)
- Re: I see, thanks...I assumed ... - Lew 10:14:00 10/22/04 (0)
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