StickMan Posted August 6, 2003 Share Posted August 6, 2003 Anyone have personal experience with using one of the Atma-Sphere or Tenor OTL's with Khorns. Thinking about arranging an in-house trial of the Atma-Sphere M-60 MKII monoblocks. Are OTL's a great match for Khorns? Thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erik Mandaville Posted August 7, 2003 Share Posted August 7, 2003 Perhaps 'Painful Reality' (Jeff L.) might comment on the the Tenors. Atmosphere also makes very good OTLs, and used to offer their products in kit form; though they don't anymore. OTLs in general are what I am also ultimately interested in -- they would be very, very fast in terms of transient ability and sense of presence. They also completely do without one of the sort of necessary 'evils' (not really evil, but disadvantages) of tube amplifiers -- the output transformer. They have historically not been very easy to design in terms of maintaining consistency and stability, and can also get quite warm. That would be an acceptable trade-off for me! Also check out Transcendent Sound OTL offerings. Regardless of what anyone may say, Bruce Rozenblit is an extraordinarily talented designer, and his OTL amplifiers, in addition to being less expensive than either the Atmosphere amps and certainly Tenor Audio's, are very highly thought of. If and when I sell the Horus amps I just finished, an OTL design will be my next project. Rozenblit also makes his schematics available to the public. Transcendent Sound amps and preamps (both phono and grounded grid linestage) can also be purchased as kits -- which of course can provide some savings. I would check them out, for sure. OTLs generally favor high rather than lower impedances, but 8 ohm horns would be a great match, I think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Robinson Posted August 7, 2003 Share Posted August 7, 2003 You're right ... Jeff's favorite amp is the Tenor, but the "liveability" issues seem to be paramount. Basically ... tons of heat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Painful Reality Posted August 7, 2003 Share Posted August 7, 2003 ---------------- On 8/6/2003 11:10:12 PM StickMan wrote: Anyone have personal experience with using one of the Atma-Sphere or Tenor OTL's with Khorns. Thinking about arranging an in-house trial of the Atma-Sphere M-60 MKII monoblocks. Are OTL's a great match for Khorns? Thoughts? ---------------- You may encounter a noise issue with the Atma-Sphere M-60 MK-II. But you should check to be sure with Ralph Kirsten. There are (were?) some options on the power supply for lower noise. The Tenor 15W OTL is definitively the ultimate amp in my view. It should mate pretty well with the K-Horn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBryan Posted August 8, 2003 Share Posted August 8, 2003 No experience with Tenor or Atma-Sphere but I did have a Transcendent T8 stereo amp hooked up to my Khorns for awhile. As already mentioned, they are lightning fast and detailed and the 25w/ch was more than enough for the Khorns. The amp was stable, quiet and handled the impedance flux quiet well. I checked its bias every month and it never needed adjustment and the amp never got too hot. On the down side, I thought the bass was pronounced and a bit flabby and the overall sound just didn't have the realism or sparkle of SET amps so I sold it. I'm sure the OTL monos would sound better and it was a fun experience. Just my opinion, Bryan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarryC Posted August 9, 2003 Share Posted August 9, 2003 I like my Joule-Electra OTL monoblocks (www.joule-electra.com) quite a bit. I can't compare them with other OTLs, but they greatly outclassed my prior Mark Levinson ML-2s. There are noise issues at K-horn efficiency which Jud Barber has been able to reduce -- a low-level buzz from a few feet away and a low-level hum, almost always inaudible when music is playing. To me, it does not seem to interfere with the music, but others might disagree. They are very pricey, not far below Tenor; produced by a very small company (pivoting on Jud); and definitely a niche product: they're turned on by slowly cranking up a variac and hand-setting the filament voltage by meter read-out. My reaction: they have a lot of real-music presence, are fast, full-range, and very detailed. I like the even sonic character from top to bottom of the range, a good match with the K-horn's similarly even character. The input sensitivity was lowered on these to match up with the K-horns and rest of the system. Using 500w. and six 6C33B output tubes for 100w. out per side, they produce noticeable but not overpowering heat. Their appearance is reasonably good, if not quite top-of-the-line. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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