Futterman. Jump in? Or, not so fast...

I had a Frank Van Alstine-modified Dynaco PAS pre-amp (quietest pre I’ve ever owned. Frank used 5751’s in place of the stock 12AX7’s), but decided to go with a passive pre, so got the then-new NYAL Super It phono stage, and sold the PAS.

Well, NYAL sent out the first samples of the Super It with the channel identifications reversed: left was right, right left. Shoulda been a red flag, right? It didn’t take me long to realize the Super It was a fairly substantial step backwards from the FVA PAS. Lesson learned.

But Harvey was a very interesting character, quite entertaining. He wrote a lot, including about the original Quad ESL and his other passion, the Decca cartridge. I wrote him (remember letters? ;-), and he looked up my number and called me in Burbank, California from New York! Over the phone he provided me with a lot of wisdom on Decca use and ownership, which has been invaluable. Miss ya, Harv.

@kacomess, New York Audio Labs was started by hi-fi provocateur Harvey Rosenberg. Harvey hired engineer George Kaye, and the two of them developed the company’s line of tube (input stage) / ss (output stage) hybrid Moscode power amps.

Harvey worked with Mr. Futterman before the latters passing, and bought the rights to the Futterman name and OTL design shortly before that came to pass. Harvey himself died at a fairly young age, but George Kaye continued to support the Moscode amps with service.

Awesome @roberjerman! State-Of-The-Art in the 60’s, and still great. One of Modjeski’s last designs was an ESL loudspeaker and a direct-drive OTL amp with which to drive it. No amplifier output transformer, no ESL input transformer, the tubes drove the ESL stators directly!

On his Audiocircle Music Reference Forum Roger discusses the design of the Futterman OTL, which he considered brilliant. Breaking current thinking on the subject, it employs very large amounts of negative feedback, one benefit being very low output impedance (in contrast to the high output impedance of all other OTL's).

Roger Modjeski (Music Reference) held the Futterman OTL in high regard (the Quad ESL as well), and his RAM Tube Works has the tubes needed for them, computer tested, graded, and matched.

But Modjeski designed an amp using the Quad as the load, and is another great amp for the speaker: The Music Reference RM-10 (original, or Mk.2). Only a single pair of EL84's per channel for 35 watts per. Much cheaper to retube than a Futterman, and in the RM-10 the 84's last 5,000-10,000 hours.