Tube Power Amp Reviews

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Brilliant CornersTube Power Amp Reviews
Brilliant Corners #7: Dual-Mono Manley Mahi Amplifiers
Alex Halberstadt  |  Sep 27, 2023  |  8 comments
Writing a regular column can be a funny thing; the repetition it requires brings up questions that grow increasingly urgent. Chief among them: What are we doing here, and what is this for? For all the handwringing about story-telling and prose style, what we're up to in the equipment-review section of this magazine is writing about metal boxes filled with wire, capacitors, circuit boards, and other bits of hardware. Life is difficult and goes by in a flash, love and satisfaction are fleeting at best—so why should we care? Well, because some of these boxes manage to connect us to beauty and meaning in a way that can enhance and gradually change our lives. (And yes, both have to be in the mix: Beauty without meaning is anodyne and lacks whupass.)
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Tube Power Amp Reviews
Zesto Bia 200 Select power amplifier
Ken Micallef  |  Mar 03, 2023  |  9 comments
Like many other industries, audio has its power couples: behind-the-scenes movers-and-shakers who shape the trajectory of the industry and who also happen to be, well, together. Angela Cardas and Josh Meredith of Cardas Audio come to mind, as do Dave and Carol Clark of Positive Feedback, Eli and Ofra Gershman of Gershman Acoustics, Luke Manley and Bea Lam of VTL, Carl and Marilyn Marchisotto of Nola Speakers, Edwin and Gabi van der Kley-Rynveld of Siltech and Crystal Cable. George and Carolyn Counnas of Zesto Audio are a hi-fi power couple I'm especially fond of; I'm always happy to see them at shows, catch up with them on the phone, or exchange emails with them. Their sweet demeanor and good vibrations always lift my spirits.

George designs Zesto's preamplifiers, power amplifiers, phono stages, and step-up transformers, while Carolyn, a talented fine-art painter, gives Zesto's products their unique organic curves...

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Gramophone DreamsTube Power Amp Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #68: Lab12 Mighty power amplifier & Pre1 preamplifier
Herb Reichert  |  Dec 28, 2022  |  24 comments
In my realm, the most sophisticated, intelligent, difficult thing anyone can do is create something mysterious. It could be a poem, a photo, a movie, a song, a symphony, or a piece of painted wood. What's most important is the mystery—and that experiencing the mysterious creation inspires in the observer a desire to probe its hidden realms, to somehow figure it out. Human cultures are founded on mysteries: Mysteries incite art, inspire science, and facilitate dreaming.
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Tube Power Amp Reviews
Jadis Defy 7, Quicksilver KT88, VAC PA90 tubed power amplifiers
Sam Tellig  |  Oct 13, 2022  |  First Published: Sep 01, 1991  |  11 comments
"It's the difference between a stuffed dog and the real thing," said Gunter (George) Bischoff, of Melos Audio, on the difference between solid-state gear and tubes. "The real dog may piss on the rug, needs visits to the vet, gets fleas, has to be walked, but it's a living thing—a real dog. The stuffed dog requires no care, needs no maintenance, but has no life."
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Audacious AudioTube Power Amp Reviews
Octave Jubilee Mono SE monoblock power amplifier
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Aug 26, 2022  |  67 comments
When I was a young man, blind dates were always laced with anxiety. (Proms were even worse. Once, when I arrived in a rented tux and my father's prized dress gloves, my date's father ordered me to take out the trash.)
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J. Gordon HoltTube Power Amp Reviews
Quicksilver MS190 power amplifier
J. Gordon Holt  |  Jan 12, 2022  |  First Published: May 01, 1984  |  7 comments
It would appear that there are still people out there who are unaware that this is the age of the transistor. Not only are tubed amplifiers not vanishing from the face of the earth, they are proliferating. Audio's equipment directory for 1977 listed three tubed power amplifiers. The same directory for 1984 lists over 30 of them, and the Quicksilver amplifier is not even included!
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J. Gordon HoltTube Power Amp Reviews
Berning EA-2100 power amplifier
J. Gordon Holt  |  Oct 14, 2021  |  First Published: May 01, 1984  |  5 comments
Although one of the most innovative firms in the audio electronics field, the David Berning Company seems determined to keep as low a profile as possible. The company advertises little, does not actively seek out new dealers, and seems content to let potential customers seek it out, as though to say "Okay, here's my product, take it or leave it." Thus, even though both Stereophile and The Absolute Sound, in a rare outbreak of agreement, a couple of years ago declared Berning's TF-10 to be one of the best preamplifiers available, most serious audiophiles are still unaware of the Berning Company's existence. Perhaps the EA-2100 will change that.
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Tube Power Amp Reviews
Audio Research VT100 power amplifier
Robert J. Reina  |  Oct 13, 2021  |  First Published: Mar 01, 1997  |  5 comments
The only thing that excites me as much as finding an excitable new affordable component (which I define as below $1000, and the lower the better) is a new "trickle-down" design from a cutting-edge designer. Thankfully, such new "real-world" products are becoming more commonplace in the High End. The process begins when a talented high-end designer releases an expensive, cutting-edge product that is hailed by the audiophile press as a breakthrough, a new "reference."
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Gramophone DreamsTube Power Amp Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #51: Feliks Audio Arioso amplifier & the Western Electric 300B tube
Herb Reichert  |  Jul 29, 2021  |  2 comments
From my writing chair, I can see about a dozen moderately priced tube and solid state audio amplifiers.

The five stacked next to my desk are First Watt or Pass Labs models designed by Nelson Pass. Across the room is a hybrid tube/class-D Rogue Sphinx V3 integrated. That black Sphinx is standing on its side behind one of the DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/93 speakers. Next to the Orangutan is a Schiit Aegir. The most conspicuous amp in the room is my BFF, the Line Magnetic LM-518 IA (footnote 1), which breaks the night's darkness with its tall, bright-emitter 845 triodes. Next to that is Ampsandsound's Bigger Ben KT88/6L6 single-ended speaker and headphone amp.

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Tube Power Amp Reviews
Doshi Audio Evolution Monoblock power amplifier
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Apr 16, 2021  |  6 comments
"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help your filaments?" asked the audiophile judge of the tube.

"Since I am the truth," respondeth the tube, "I have nothing to say that is not already declared by my sound."

"But I must have the truth, and without bias!" proclaimeth the audiophile.

"What good is a tube without bias?" answereth the tube.

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Gramophone DreamsPhono Cartridge ReviewsPhono Preamp ReviewsTube Power Amp Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #47: Hana Umami Red, Musical Surroundings Nova III, Ampsandsound Bigger Ben
Herb Reichert  |  Apr 07, 2021  |  22 comments
At the end of Gramophone Dreams #46, I was lost in the pristine beauty of Decware's 25th Anniversary Zen Triode amplifier driving the DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/93 speakers. That was an extremely enjoyable system, and I was hoping to keep it intact for another month. My plan was simply to morph into my long-postponed opus on tube rolling using the Zen Triode as well as Ampsandsound's Bigger Ben headphone and loudspeaker amp. Both are single-ended triode, no-feedback designs and therefore perfectly suited for tube-swapping comparisons.
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Gramophone DreamsTube Power Amp Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #46: Decware Zen Triode Amplifier
Herb Reichert  |  Feb 25, 2021  |  73 comments
I am not a fan of that amp designer who promoted his products by pointing a condescending finger while scolding audiophiles, like errant children, for preferring their records to sound "pleasant" rather than "accurate."

He reminds me of my least favorite teacher, Professor Grausamkeit, who was just like that and said similar things. Every time I smarted back, "Accurate to what?" he'd whack me with a wooden yardstick.

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Audacious AudioTube Power Amp Reviews
VAC Statement 452 iQ Musicbloc mono/stereo power amplifier
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 18, 2020  |  63 comments
VAC's Statement 452 iQ Musicbloc amplifier ($75,000 for a single amp; $150,000/pair mono, as reviewed) is tall, young, and lovely, but unlike the girl from Ipanema, it isn't tan. Nor, at 280lb in its flight case, is it likely to "go walkin'." Getting the pair moved into my listening room required considerable effort—fortunately not mine.
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Art Dudley ListeningTube Power Amp Reviews
Listening #206: Shindo Cortese amplifier
Art Dudley  |  Jan 28, 2020  |  87 comments
Only recently did I learn that successive generations of the Chevrolet Corvette are referred to by the cognoscenti with two-character alpha-numeric identifiers: C1, C2, C3, and so on. I learned this while reading about the most recent version—C8, known to non-cognoscenti as the 2020 Corvette—which happens to be the first version since C2 that impresses me. (I say that as one who used to work for the owner of a C3, a then-middle-aged male who actually boasted, while under the influence, that he and two of his C3-owning friends drove them solely because their juvenile styling attracted juveniles. Rest assured I left his employ within days of that revelation.)
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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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