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In Reply to: Tenor Audio posted by Rushton on February 1, 2005 at 17:43:02:
I'd be curious to know whether they are as wonderful as Jonathan Valin seems to think they are, particularly the 20W all-tube product. I'd be grateful for any informed opinions.
Follow Ups:
I had the Tenor 75watt amps in my system a couple of years ago. They did not sound as neutral as the Atmasphere MA1's and the highs were not as extended either. They had a pleasant sound but I would not necessarily known that they were OTL's - I thought the Graaf GM 200 which I owned for awhile was better. I was using stock Pipedream speakers at the time which are a fairly easy load - perhaps the rave reviews were with speakers that had a more difficult load and lower efficiency. I went the other way and reconfigured my speakers to be tri-amped with a relatively high impedence (12 ohms midrange, 18 ohm highs)- and the Atmaspheres really responded. The distortion goes down and the dynamic envelope is significantly increased.
I have one at one 15W OTL to which all my amps are compared.For my taste, nothing come close to these.
(disclaimer: I am not promoting whatever brandnames in the marketplace. Just that I read posts regarding audition comments on the Italian Graff & American Atma-Sphere, which I've auditioned, I put in my own sonic impression of the Canadian Tenor as well.)Whoever wants to borrow the critics' opinion on the Tenor flagship
model: 75WP 75W monoblock, here are some of them:"The best stereo system I've ever heard: Rockport Technologies Hyperion loudspeakers+ Tenor 75WP OTL amp"
"Best buy"by Jon Valin, The Absolute Sound, June/July 2002.
I've auditioned this combination bigtime & agreed with Jon wholeheartedly."Sound open without being lean, full but without excessive warmth or any murkiness...pleasurable to the extreme but not ruined by obvious eupohony or coloration... absolutely nails the harmonic structure of instruments... Piano has the most correct atttack and decay"
"What more can I say? Seek a pair, but have your checkbook ready"
by Marc Mickelson, Soundstage June 2002.My way of auditioning any equipment is to listen its sonic performance before I start to read its specs & reviews. So no pre-bias whatsoever.
My first audition of this monoblock was three years ago. I started
by asking the attendant (a lady, incidentally) in the top sound boutique in town, to show me the best sounding amp available there. What a quasi-blind test as I didn't know what I would be given to listen!After three hours solid audition with my test CDs among other music programmes, I got to find back my jaw where I dropped it. Then I started to read the reviews the lady attendant gave me & then knew this is a 'something-else' of an amp made by a Belgian in Canada.
It is indeed a pity as learned from Rushton that the amps' maker is
in sort of financial insolvency. If really so, we audio fans will lose a golden opportunity of enjoying music reproduction to its finest.Good OTL listening
cheap-Jack
Feb 2, 2005.PS: I fully agreed what Marc Michelson implied in his review above
that really good OTL designs, like Tenor, does "not ruined by obvious euphony or coloration" that many output-transformered tube amps do.
Thanks for in the process correcting me on the power of the amp, 75W, not 20W. I am well aware of Jonathan Valin's rave review, but since he falls in and out of love regularly with audio components, especially amplifiers and speakers, I was looking for fresh opinions. Good to know that your experience was similar to his. What speakers do you use with the Tenors, or what speakers were playing when you auditioned them, if you do not own a pair? Is the schematic available anywhere?
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