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S30 - Tube Amp

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This is for Joey - a genuine S30 Atma-Sphere Transformerless Tube Amp - only 30 watts - but sounds like 500!
1195 Views since 2012-11-30
Liked by nomad
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12-01-12 10:15
I beleive it sounds like 500 watts, my freind has the David Berning microZOTL amp its only about 1 watt per channel. One single 6SN7 perchannel and it drives a large set of Klipsch very well.
12-01-12 07:35
I see, yes for hi-fi applications that would make sense. I'm a guitar player so distortion is very desirable for tube amps in that application. They've made great strides to create digital modeling of tube amps for guitar but in the end they're just simulating the real thing and they still don't have the same feel or response. Tubes aren't cheap but they haven't been beat yet. Glad to see we have some audiophiles here!
12-01-12 04:51
Just the Tops Rick. A stacked pair (four panels) of refurbished Quad Electrostatics would just round off the system. People think that Photography is expensive! The price of a Leica M9 won't even buy you a 2 metre set of top of the range Stereo Bi-wirable speaker cables from Nordost. Do you still have the Jadis amp? I would settle for that. Steve
12-01-12 01:03
Nomad,

In spite of the Retro Look, this is actually a very state-of-the-art amplifier. The output transformer in a traditional amp is usually one of the biggest sources of distortion. The elimination of the output transformer yields a much cleaner output. The seemingly large number of tubes is how they adjust the output voltage to match the speakers without using a transformer. Atma-Sphere is very much in business these days with quite a loyal following.

Rick
11-30-12 18:37
Very nice! Looks like some nice vintage tubes there. That's a whole lotta tubes for 30 watts! I've never seen a transformerless amp before, I'm sure that made sense to someone once upon a time but probably not as efficient. Gotta love tubes though, they still haven't made anything that sounds better.
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