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Transcendent OTL Amps, very nice


emmvette

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I purchased a pair of Transcendent OTL amps and have used them bridged with my Khorns and the Transcendent GG preamp. They are 4W each and sound great!

I had posted a WTB note a while back for a nice 45 amp such as a Don Allen, Jeff K., or Welborne. I didn't find any of them, and I ran into these amps and decided to give them a try. I'm glad I did and I would recommend them to anybody with high efficiency horn speakers.

They excel with voices, and are also very fast and can hang with just about any music type. My Khorns are in a very large, two story room that is open to most of the house, so I wouldn't want to try just one amp in stereo. One amp would be fine in a smaller room.

I also have a NOSValves VRD Stereo45 amp which is awesome. The VRD definately has more wattage and if I want to rock out when nobody else is home it is the way to go. However there is something very sexy about the SE OTL amps - they are very "liquid".

I know these have been around for a while - I just thought I'd share this in case somebody else is considering them and wondering if they are recommended. I'll be keeping these and rotating them with my VRD45. I don't have to pick one amp, but if I did I would choose the VRD45 because it has more wattage, is beautiful, and very well built. If I had it in a smaller area I would likely keep the SE OTLs. Fortunately, I'm going to keep both!

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I have not heard his amps (although I'm chomping at bit, waiting for the 300B OTL monoblocks) however I have read Bruce's books and his engineering is impressive. With a few notable exceptions, most tube equipment is a re-hash of designs that first appeared in the Radiotron Handbook of 1937( admittedly they package them in impressive boxes with lots of chrome and hardwood)! Eliminating the output transformer removes either a very good but expensive (read Manley or Mcintosh) or rather poor but cheaper (read most others) component from the signal chain.

Rozenblit has solved some real electronic challenges and like the scientist he evidently is, has published his schematics to the world at large for critical review. He even offers advice on his forum to people replicating his designs.

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Never have heard the GG preamp, but can imagine that the sound is very good.

I had a GG preamp and used it with moondogs and SS amps with great results.

For $500 in kit form it is a great preamp if you have the skills to build things which I do not!! You can buy it built for around $900.

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Very smart engineering that offers outstanding performance -- among the very best I have built and heard with Klipsch Heritage -- but like all electronics here, perhaps not for everyone. Rozenblit's many designs are enjoyed the world over, and yes, he does not mind openly sharing his circuits, which are indeed unique. I have two pair of 300B monoblocks of my own making, and while I like them very much, I'm also really curious about his latest work, evidently an extremely good sounding amplifier, the 300B OTL. I've punched lots of chassis holes, so maybe I'll wait for the kit despite the fact that it's outlined in his new book.

But then again I have two more Baldwins to rebuild, and I love those old, great sounding beasts....

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Erik,

Happy to see you post on these. Really tempting, but my own time is limited, so I just keep enjoying the Moondogs.

Going to order the rest of the parts for the second rebuild of my ST70 soon.

Hope the school year is going well for you.

Bruce

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I've punched lots of chassis holes, so maybe I'll wait for the kit despite the fact that it's outlined in his new book.

.

From what I'm hearing it would be difficult to build a scratch version for less than he plans to offer the kit for. I also looked at building my own from the schematics but I think getting the grounding right would be very tricky.

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Hi, Philip. Thanks for mentioning that. I have put together approximately....what is it...15 or 20 Teanscendent kits for others, which includes several that needed to be completely taken apart and repaired (T16s and SEOTL) They are fairly familiar ground to me (that was an unintentional pun), but more than that, I enjoy the challenge of scratch vs kit building. It also allows me to put my own aesthetic spin on things. But what you say certainly makes a very good point. The kits tend to get the majority of bugs out of them -- which for some die-hard builders and self-proclaimed addicted troubleshooters like me -- takes some of the fun out of it. My wife often says I wouldn't be happy if not for having the chance to find the problem in some amplifier or radio I found to be in need of attention. I'm sure the kit will be great, as all the TS kits are.

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I've used several of Bruce's amps over the years going back to his T8 and over that arc, I've noted his progress and the refinement of his designs. It seems that he and very few others (Nelson Pass comes to mind - maybe David Berning) have the technical know-how, curiosity and courage to come up with new designs and actually bring them to fruition and offer them to his clients ( at a very reasonable price). I have held on to a pair of SEOTL's (I used 4 of them at one time) and even though I haven't had an opportunity to use them in a few years, I can't bring myself to let them go. There's something quite special about their sound and I just know if they find another home, I will regret it.

Erik - I remember that you recommended several mods to these amps over at the Transcendent forum so if you ever find yourself hankering to fool around with the SEOTL's again, you're more than welcome to play around with mine for a while. -Bryan

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  • 2 weeks later...

But then again I have two more Baldwins to rebuild, and I love those old, great sounding beasts....

Erik I still have and enjoy my Super Baldwin amp I got from Will, as you say it is a beast with lots of power for my modded K-horns!!! Huge transformer very heavy to say the least. Now I listen mostly to my Korneff 45 amp simply because it does everything I like right, wish it had just one more watt LOL!!!

Jay

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I also have one of Will's Baldwin amps and its a fine amp. It offers a thicker and ballsy sound that works great on stock Khorns and CWs but is a bit too much for more sensitive/efficient speaks in my book. The SEOTL by contrast seems faster, more detailed and a touch more delicate than the Baldwin. Its also extremely quiet which is very important on sensitive speakers and I really like what a pair of monos are capable of - especially with the bottom end control. Again, the Baldwin is a little thicker in this area and may be slightly shy of how low and controlled the SEOTL is.

The Korneff is one of the few amps I regret letting go of as it had a very distinctive sound - tremendous finesse and liquid. Jeff added very little gain to the amp so the 45's shined through and his utilitarian approach to the amp's design and implementation is closely aligned with PWK's philosophy toward the Heritage line (IMO, of course). I enjoyed Jeff's amp for years but eventually went with 45 mono blocks powering only the top end drivers so his amp sat unused until a fellow forum member convinced me that they had a better use for it. If I were going to set up a system where a single amp is required, I'd certainly have the Korneff as a top candidate and if the speakers were less than 97dB efficient, the Baldwin would be right there too.

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I also have one of Will's Baldwin amps and its a fine amp. It offers a thicker and ballsy sound that works great on stock Khorns and CWs but is a bit too much for more sensitive/efficient speaks in my book. The SEOTL by contrast seems faster, more detailed and a touch more delicate than the Baldwin. Its also extremely quiet which is very important on sensitive speakers and I really like what a pair of monos are capable of - especially with the bottom end control. Again, the Baldwin is a little thicker in this area and may be slightly shy of how low and controlled the SEOTL is.

The Korneff is one of the few amps I regret letting go of as it had a very distinctive sound - tremendous finesse and liquid. Jeff added very little gain to the amp so the 45's shined through and his utilitarian approach to the amp's design and implementation is closely aligned with PWK's philosophy toward the Heritage line (IMO, of course). I enjoyed Jeff's amp for years but eventually went with 45 mono blocks powering only the top end drivers so his amp sat unused until a fellow forum member convinced me that they had a better use for it. If I were going to set up a system where a single amp is required, I'd certainly have the Korneff as a top candidate and if the speakers were less than 97dB efficient, the Baldwin would be right there too.

Hey JBryan you are right the Baldwin is a fine sounding amp especially if you are listening to rock it just has a great sound to it, mix that with some nice RCA 6L6 tubes and it is awesome. Tell me I am really curious about the SEOTL amps, how does it compare to the other two amps we are talking about???

Jay

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I think you guys have explained the differences between the old Baldwins and the transcendent amps (at least the models we've mentioned here) perfectly. I found the SEOTL, once I was able to quiet it down enough, a great headphone amp. It's input voltage sensitivity is also such that a preamp in front of it only adds a pile of extra circuitry, because the gain from a source such as CDP is enough to where I'm going to install a volume control directly on the amp -- which is NOT the same as using a passive volume control in front of it. The on-board VC will replaces the fixed grid-to-ground resistor in the first stage, which influences impedance concerns differently from using a passive device in front of the amp -- unless that passive attenuator is based on the use of transformer coupling, which IMO is the ideal choice for a passive preamp (I use the term passive in the very simple sense that it's position in the signal chain is just before the amplifier). After rebuilding three T-16s last year, I finally got one for myself. It's really very much like a more powerful SEOTL as far as its overall sound. And recently, one of the guys for whom I did the T16 rebuilds told me recently he has become enthralled with a class A solid state design from Nelson Pass, and offered his T16 for a price a just can't refuse -- as if I need another amplifier around here. Anyway, the plan is to configure both the one I have and this new one for monoblock use. And Bruce: I still love my Moondogs, though they are a bit different now. Poor amps, even though they are still in great shape physically have completely redesigned power supplies, on less capacitor in the signal path, and use 300Bs instead of 2A3s. Those old triodes like the 300B,2A3, and 45 always captivate me with their incredible midrange range and sense of air. I've also been pondering some ideas for amps using output valves such as the PX4 and PX25, which are less common to some but were popular a long time ago.

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