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Counterpoint Hybrid Amps: How do they sound?

I've been curious about the Counterpoint SA-100 and NPS amps. They had a tube driver stage and MOSFET outputs. How do they sound compared to other things out there? Are they reliable? Counterpoint was famous for having equipment that was unstable and blew up. I had been told that the designer was not as technically adept an engineer, and that was why the circuit designs were not the most stable, and certain components were stressed in the circuit.

Anyway, the concept of hybrid amps has always been interesting, and very controversial. The different thoughts:

Hybrid amps have the best of tubes and solid state.

Hybrid amps have the worst of tubes and solid state combined.

Hybrid amps should use tube input stages and solid state output stages.

Hybrid amps should use solid state input stages and tube output stages.

YOUR EXPERIENCE & OPINIONS?
kevziek

Showing 1 response by ultrakaz

ultrakaz
187 posts
 
I used to sell Counterpoint equiptment in the mid 80s. Generally speaking the amps were pretty reliable and the preamps amps were not as reliable. I owned a pre-amp and it blew up. I remember the amps and pre-amps sounding very good at the time; more transparent than CJ and more warmth and dimensionality than Threshold.

I thought that Mr. Elliot was a pioneer in the field and a very competent designer. Also, I think that the reliability issue was more a result of low/cheap quality parts. I think that hybrids in theory have a lot of potential and would favor them in amps that put out over a 100 watts.
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