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I'm a new and happy owner of a pair of Tannoy 3808 (15 inc.5,5 ohm min-nom 8 ohms) speakers and now I have started the search of new amps to suit them. Can OTL's be a good alternative? Maybe Atma-Sphere S30?
Happy if you could share your experience.http://www.hififorum.nu/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=45917
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Anyone heard this combo? Harvey was very impressed with the Berning stuff.
Vinyl is final
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...loving his M-60/Tannoy Churchill setup.
IIRC the Giz was running 4 M-60s with a pair of Royal Westminsters. I further seem to recall that His Triodeness stiffed Ralph on the return of said M-60s (or something to that effect) resulting in some bitterness (understandably) between those two.
Rosenberg liked the M60 amps a lot at first. He said so in Positive Feedback magazine. But later he liked them less, complaining mainly of the effect of multiple tubes in parallel at the output. My memory says he modified the amps and wrote about it, and the changes were not what the designer thought were good for the amplifiers. That's what I remember but I no longer have the magazines to check.So, given Harvey's initial enthusiasm, given that the design has been improved to make the output tubes work more 'harmoniously', and given that the S30 has fewer output tubes, I would think that amplifier should be a good choice.
Harvey was very much in the thrall of SETs. In a typical SET amp, you will find a lot of transformers and inductors. He decided that the low voltage (LV) supply for the output circuit in the M60 (i.e., the power supply for the circlotron) needed some added inductance for additional smoothing. Ralph likes to use a bank of capacitors only (no resistors or inductors) for this purpose (see below). So Harvey installed inductors in his M60s, to create a CLC type of filter in the LV power supply. He then wrote in PF that this mod effected a huge improvement in the sound of the amplifier and moreover that he no longer cared for the sound of the unmodified M60, before he moved on to his next obsession. Ralph did not appreciate this very much, because he felt that his own experiments revealed that the introduction of any device into the filter (R or L) that increased the impedance of the LV supply had a negative effect on the sound quality of the M60. Then when Ralph continued to quote Harvey's original ecstatic review of the M60, this in turn upset Harvey who by then no longer had the M60 at the top of his list. Sic semper audiophilius.
Lew,I think you summed it up pretty well. I'd also add, that in addition to all the changes you mentioned, HR also replaced the bipolar HV supplies in the M-60s with external vacuum-tube regulated power supplies. These were large units, about the size of the M-60 itself, and much heavier. They also make a bit of noise. If you know what a Lambda 71 is, they were similar.
While I question some of the changes he made, I don't doubt that others made significant improvements. Our designs have evolved a great deal since that era, and when I recently began the update of my first-run M-60 Mk.IIs, I had to smile at just how basic those first units were.
Harvey was a freelance writer - not a manufacturer. Harvey's job was to sell himself, to his publishers and readers. Our job was to sell our equipment, to our customers. In his series of articles he created a system, which irrespective of its sonic qualities, was utterly impractical (at least from a selling standpoint). To cite these developments as cause for lauding his own achievements, while discrediting the original designs, seemed rather self-serving of him.
It's easy to look at someone else's work, whether it be art or craft, and say "Well, I could have done that!". But the fact of the matter is that you didn't, and therein lies the great difference.
I agree completely. Great character and interesting person though he was, HR's record vis a vis Futterman (the man and the amplifier) was also not spotless. However, I don't think there was ever an evil or malicious intent in anything he said or did. RIP.
ThanksAnd I will test the S30 this weekend and we will see how it works out.
Parallel 300B monblocks did not :(( but I don't know why.
If you can audition the amp before you purchase do that, I was told that the S30 would/did not like any load below 8 ohms (not even 7.9 ohms). I tried it anyway on a pair of speakers that use Eton drivers and Focal tweeters. Both drivers are a nominal 8 dropping no lower than 7 ohms. To make a long story short the amp sounded dead, as a friend said "lifeless". I wanted this amp to work in the worse way, tried several speaker cables, changed the crossover in the speaker a little. I should have listened to what was told me. Sold it and bought the M60's and have never been happier. If you are sold on the S30, you might budget for the Zero Autofomers (http://www.zeroimpedance.com/), they fool your amp into thinking that it is driving a much higher ohm rating. Just my experience, good luck............Bob
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