$4500 amp beat out the Tenor OTL in the latest TAS


You read that right! In the Feb/March edition of TAS, HP declares that the ASL (antique sound lab)Hurricanes at $4500 are the best amps he has EVER heard at any price. In another section of the same issue, the hurricane won tube amp of the year while the Tenor 75 watter was the runner-up.
dolphin

Showing 1 response by tubegroover

Zaikesman, the output transformer for the Atmas-pheres you are referring to in your last post is maybe the zeroformer(?) which acts as a passive transformer and increases the turns ratio of the amp so the load from the speaker to the amp is optimally realized at 16 ohms.

The zeroformer, designed by Paul Speltz (Atmas-phere also markets or did market one) has several wires connecting to the autoformer that act as a multiplier. The multipliers are 1.37X, 2X, 4X, and 8X. As an example, an 4 ohm speaker would be set at the 4X setting to realize an ideal 16 ohm load. The downside is that the sound does tend to get a bit drier and more solid stateish. It works but does tend to affect the sound of the amp especially at the higher multipliers.