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In the Forum: Audio Discussions
In the Thread: NAT Audio Magna -160 Watts of Single-Ended Class A
Post Subject: The “elephant sound” of the "dehydrated" highs.Posted by Romy the Cat on: 11/13/2007
 cv wrote: |
| But I don't think they are doing this here. What I would bet is that that they are running the thing in A2 with a much lower Z primary, using a lower B+ and high standing current. They are also using feedback which will help the bandwidth. |
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They are running the thing in A2, are you kidding. I presume this amp sits ONLY in A2. To get 160W then need to dissipate somewhere around 400W on anode. I doubt that they went for high currant as then have no visible size of OPT transformer (thins thing is small) to care large gap. So, most likely they went for higher voltage but this tube at high voltages has positive bias and run with quite serious grid current. So, it never actually lives A2.
http://www.goodsoundclub.com/PDF/450TH.pdf
| cv wrote: |
| Btw, what do you mean by "dehydrated" highs?! I've heard you use that one before... |
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That is my permanent pain with all high voltage (>500V) tubes. I do not like their sound. The excessive space for OPT dielectric in those amps creates excessive capacitance that not only rolls HF (there is a way to fight with it) but also make HF that merged differently with the rest audio bandwidth. That entire army of amp makes HF unfertile – their HF “are there” but their HF are meaningless. Their HF usually have different “stickiness” then the rest of the bandwidth – I call it different moisture of tone or dehydration…. That all crates something that I call the “elephant sound” – when the high voltage tubes internally kind of “burn” the ability to discriminate the tiny details and minute HF events. Those tubes usually “impress” the Morons with “large” sound trading the delicacy and sophistication as fine information is burned out by the high-power tubes (I presume that in capacitance of OPT and perhaps in the excessive dimensions of electron cloud). That Sound looks like a painting that was made with a 10 feet brash. That minting looks fine if you look at it from one mile away but it you care about the fine details and subtle play of shadow then it is moistly way beyond the resolution of high-power tubes. They are juts an elephants run over the bushes of blueberrys, not even acknowledging what they step upon…
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