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RE: I will chime in here

Very nice post, Morricab. Thanks.

I have found that to properly benefit from the wonderful transparency of the OTL—in my case, a pair of Atma-Sphere Silver Edition MA-1’s—I must pay attention to the smallest parts of my overall system. The amps are at the penultimate end of a long chain of segments and interfaces, any one of which—or in combination—can affect the sound markedly. Thus I would no longer be sure enough of my ground to say that an OTL or SE amp is thus or so per se.

When I first hooked up my amps to my current speakers (GR Research LS-9’s with servo subs) I was mildly disappointed. I had heard the 9’s at RMAF driven by conventional amps (Dodds) in a carefully set up system, and they sounded terrific. I believe I have gone well beyond that sound now, but here’s what it took:

1. New internal wiring (Marigo)
2. Removing a sleeve I had put on a segment of the Marigo’s and separating the wires
3. Different series/parallel wiring scheme to optimize impedance
4. Different solder on the new wiring (Stop that! I heard someone giggling.)
5. A change to the crossover (because of the new wiring scheme)
6. Different IC’s (my silver ones were now too bright)
7. Replacing the 6SN-7 input tubes

I and several experienced observer friends heard a difference with every one of these changes. Whereas before the changes an especially picky (annoying, really) audio buddy politely declined my offers for a listening session, now he comes over often and brings others.

Placebo effect? Maybe. I did believe going in that the Marigo would make a substantial difference, and it did. But the difference was immediately obvious to other observers as well. As to the predicted effects of some of the other changes, well skepticism reigned supreme until the changes were made.

I suspect that the same attention to detail is necessary to make SE’s really sing in a real world system.

What’s next? Maybe some further tweaks: fuses, room mods, vibration control? The point is, the OTL’s let me hear what’s going on to an unprecedented degree compared to what I had before. Benefit or curse? You tell me.

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