Upgraded to Audio Note J - and other musings.

[benil]

He may have been a rocket scientist in his day job, but his amplifier is still a minor variant of the primitive SET design. Oh his big claim to fame is inserting a capacitor between the low side of the primiary output transformer winding and the cathode. That and a direct coupling between the plate output of the driver tube and the control grid of the output tube. Big deal.

Wow BIG WORDS from you man. so what's your claim to fame? the tone of your language seems to me YOU have made the biggest contribution to audio design in history. have you even tried listening to this amp? what then is good value to you? can you give an example of an amp you really like so we can get to listen to them. who knows? I might have a friend who has them lying around gathering dust somewhere.

By the way, the review stinks. He lost me in the first few sentences with his extoling his new power conditioner and his power cord that are finally broken in. No measurements of course. Just a lot of bull. As I said, they don't really like to show you what's under the hood and as far a this reveiwer is concerned, I don't think he would know what he was looking at anyway. BTW, a directly heated cathode goes back to the most primitive form. Better have a rock steady power supply or there will be hum and noise.

"If I didn't already have the specialty power cords, I'd probably be able to do without. Thus the $5,000 charge for the twelve outlet unit may actually be a bargain, considering you may be able to do without twelve super high-end power cords at $1,000-$6,000 each."

give me a break.

i don't agree with that part on power cords either. hum you say? again, its obvious you haven't heard any of Jack's amp before.

Hey, remember my earlier posting about how primitive SET amps are? Here's your guru's opinion. I'm sure AN's amp fits into here somewhere.

"Just about every different type of tube circuit, especially the SET ones, were first developed in the 30's, with the last being probably the Williamson push pull circuit from the late 40's. Every tube amp development since has been variations on these prehistoric configurations, just using different configurations and quality of resistors, capacitors, inductors, transformers, etc., to adjust the sound. Each new change is considered an advancement by the maker, but is usually just a variation of a theme."

Well, maybe he does know something about tube amplifiers after all.

believe me: using better configurations, quality resistors, capacitors, inductors, transformers do affect the sound. each may have a small contribution which when all added up make a lot of difference. the WHOLE does become greater than the SUM of the parts. again, this is all just based on listening experience.

[skeptic]

The differences in the configurations are minimal. The incremental cost of the better parts is also minimal. These guys think that as audio tinkerers they should be paid the same wage for their after hours extra curricular activities as they get for their real work. If there are people out there willing to pay it, why shouldn't they. I'm not.