Tube Power Amp Reviews

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Tube Power Amp Reviews
Air Tight ATM-1S power amplifier
Art Dudley  |  Nov 12, 2014  |  13 comments
It's no secret, especially to those who've been following Stereophile for more than a short time: In the first half of 2007, I took the plunge and bought a Shindo preamplifier and monoblock amplifiers—handmade products characterized by low output power, generous numbers of vintage parts, steel casework finished in a signature shade of green, and richly textured, impactful sound with lots of sheer musical drive. And while we tend not to alert the major newspapers whenever someone on staff buys new electronics, the change was notable for two reasons: The compatibility of Shindo's amplifiers is limited to loudspeakers of higher-than-average sensitivity and impedance; and, throughout the seven years that followed my switch to Shindo (footnote 1) both my system and my point of view regarding domestic audio in general have evolved in the direction of the artisanal and the vintage.
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Tube Power Amp Reviews
Air Tight ATM-211 tube monoblock power amplifier
Robert Deutsch  |  Oct 20, 2002  |  0 comments
Single-ended triode amplifiers (SETs) have a considerable following, but even their most devoted fans admit that its maximum power output is not among an SET's strengths. You'd be lucky to get an SET that puts out 7Wpc, and some (like those using the 45 tube) are closer to 2Wpc. Highly sensitive speakers (eg, horns) will tend to offset the power limitation, and SETs usually sound more powerful than their measurements indicate, but the laws of physics still apply: 2W is 2W, regardless of the kind of amplifier that produces it, and an amplifier's manner of clipping and recovery from overload take us only part of the way toward achieving greater volume.
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Tube Power Amp Reviews
Air Tight ATM-300R power amplifier
Art Dudley  |  Jan 24, 2019  |  41 comments
To audio designers in Japan and elsewhere, the single-ended, 300B-tubed amplifier is like a haiku: an art form defined by both its prescribed limitations and the potential such restraint offers for artistic expression. Here, the only hard-and-fast rule is a simple one: output devices are limited to one 300B directly heated triode tube per channel. From there, it's a blank slate: Do you want AC or DC on the output-tube heaters? Tube or solid-state rectification? Low or high gain? Fixed or cathode bias? New parts, vintage parts, or a mix of both? Triode or pentode tubes as drivers? Capacitors or transformers—or nothing at all—between the plates of the driver tubes and the grids of the output tubes?
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Tube Power Amp Reviews
Allnic Audio A-5000 DHT monoblock power amplifier
Art Dudley  |  Jun 14, 2012  |  2 comments
Even at its humblest, a 300B is a fine thing. And at its best, this classic triode output tube can deliver some of the most intoxicating music playback imaginable. If tubes are liquor, the 300B is clearly absinthe. (The 2A3 is Cognac, the 45 is Armagnac, the F2a is Tequila, and the EL34 is vodka—which is to say, you can make almost anything out of an EL34, from the repulsive to the sublime.)
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Tube Power Amp Reviews
Antique Sound Lab Explorer 805 DT monoblock power amplifier
Art Dudley  |  Mar 21, 2004  |  First Published: Mar 01, 2004  |  0 comments
Anyone over 40 who's worked in a hi-fi or record store will remember the Pfanstiehl catalog, a pulpy thing that most shopkeepers chained to their counters, like a phone book. Pfanstiehl made replacement styli for virtually every record-playing device of the day, and their catalog contained page after page of tiny line drawings of nothing but phonograph needles, all lovingly rendered in three-quarter view. You couldn't browse it without being brought up short: My God, how many different needles are there? And how is it possible that a single company could tool up for so many products and still make a profit?
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Tube Power Amp Reviews
Audio Research Classic 60 power amplifier
John Atkinson  |  Sep 26, 1995  |  First Published: Sep 26, 1990  |  0 comments
"The only tubes that I want to see in my household are...the picture tube in my TV and the magnetron in the microwave oven," a Glendale, CA, reader recently wrote, and I guess his feelings reflect those of many when confronted by a supposedly "obsolete" audio technology. Forty years after the invention of the transistor and 20 after the widespread introduction of solid-state amplifiers (footnote 1), it must come as a shock to readers of the mass-market "slicks" that not only do a number of American manufacturers manufacture amplifiers and preamplifiers using tubes, but some of those companies—Counterpoint and Audio Research in particular—are among the more successful. It is the Classic 60 power amplifier from Minnesota-based Audio Research that is the subject of this month's lead-off equipment review.
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Tube Power Amp Reviews
Audio Research D-160B power amplifier
Anthony H. Cordesman  |  Sep 23, 2011  |  First Published: Jun 01, 1984  |  0 comments
The Audio Research D-160B has been heavily modified since the D-160A, and uses the same technology as the D-70, D-115, and D-250. It embodies William Z. Johnson's latest transformer and power supply designs, his latest choice of capacitors and resistors, and the same independent regulation of screens, drivers, and front end. D-160s and D-160As can be converted to D-160Bs for $1500.
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Tube Power Amp ReviewsJ. Gordon Holt
Audio Research D-250 II Servo power amplifier
J. Gordon Holt  |  Aug 16, 1995  |  First Published: Aug 16, 1986  |  0 comments
The D-250 is the flagship of Audio Research's power amplifier range and, at 250 watts per channel, is the most powerful all-tube stereo amplifier currently available in the US. Under the circumstances, then, it is not surprising that it should also be one of the heaviest and largest.
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HistoricalJ. Gordon HoltTube Power Amp Reviews
Audio Research Dual 150 power amplifier
J. Gordon Holt  |  Dec 05, 2019  |  First Published: Aug 01, 1976  |  13 comments
We mentioned in the last issue that we were becoming increasingly disturbed by "a certain manic quality that is creeping into this pursuit of sonic perfection." We were referring then to a manufacturer's announcement of the imminent availability of a speaker system weighing over 1000 lb per channel, but we could just as well have been speaking of this behemoth from Audio Research.
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Tube Power Amp ReviewsJ. Gordon Holt
Audio Research M300 monoblock power amplifier
Martin Colloms, J. Gordon Holt  |  Dec 26, 1995  |  First Published: Dec 26, 1987  |  0 comments
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Tube Power Amp ReviewsTube Preamp Reviews
Audio Research Reference 1 preamplifier & VT200 power amplifier
Wes Phillips  |  Apr 03, 2005  |  First Published: Nov 03, 1998  |  0 comments
They say you never forget your first time. For me, it was an Audio Research SP-6B that had been heavily modified by Analogique in NYC—which meant, among other things, that yellow capacitors shunted other yellow capacitors all the way up to the top plate. That first taste of the High End—prior to that, you might say my face had been pressed against the window—was definitely love at first listen. That SP-6B was warm yet detailed, and I ended up building a system around it that at least one friend described as a huge musical wet kiss.
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Tube Power Amp Reviews
Audio Research Reference 110 power amplifier
Robert J. Reina  |  Aug 18, 2007  |  0 comments
When I attend Stereophile's annual Home Entertainment show, I rarely sit and listen to music for very long. Instead, I try to hit every room, press the flesh, find out about new products, and play a little jazz.
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Tube Power Amp Reviews
Audio Research Reference 150 power amplifier
Erick Lichte  |  Jul 02, 2012  |  5 comments
It's always good to have a reference. No matter the endeavor, references help guide us and set standards for all we do. For many hours of every day, I'm lucky to enjoy the reference of live, unamplified music. Right now, I average over 20 hours a week of rehearsals and performances of various ensembles, and four to five hours of listening to recorded music on my hi-fi. Clearly, for me, my musical reference is not the sound of my audio system, but the sound of live music created in various venues and acoustics.
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Tube Power Amp Reviews
Audio Research Reference 160M monoblock power amplifier
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Sep 20, 2018  |  10 comments
At a recent dealer event in Seattle, after being impressed by the musical rightness of an Audio Research Corp. LS28 preamplifier and VT80SE power amplifier driving a pair of Sonus Faber Guarneri loudspeakers, I spoke with ARC's Dave Gordon about reviewing one of the company's new amplifiers. Less than a month later, two ARC Reference 160M tubed monoblock amplifiers ($30,000/pair) were headed my way.
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Tube Power Amp Reviews
Audio Research Reference 160S power amplifier
Jim Austin  |  Jan 21, 2020  |  34 comments
This, our February issue, is the first Stereophile issue to arrive during the year 2020, which marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of Audio Research—in my view one of the key events in the history of high-end audio. So it makes sense for this issue to include an Audio Research review—in this case, of the $20,000 Reference 160 S stereo amplifier.
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