2. amps-preamps
  3. 155120-72263

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

Today I heard a Futterman OTL powering a pair of Quad ESL57s. The Futterman has been recently serviced and is in nice shape. It sounded wonderful. I understand this is a rare beast.

I've been advised a set of tubes can last 10,000 hours. But these are not common tubes and they need to be closely matched, an their are 12 of them. If I were to buy this amp I'd immediately start worrying about putting together a backup set of spares, which could run into quite a bit of money.

So - Futterman owners - what say ye?  Jump on the chance to own a legend? Or stick with my "set and forget" Quad 909 powering my ESL 2805s...
markusthenaimnut

Showing 3 responses by markusthenaimnut

markusthenaimnut's avatar
markusthenaimnut OP
376 posts
 
clio09 - cool. 
So, if I were to send you info about the tubes I need, might you be able to provide several which would match the test data of the tubes already in the amp?
markusthenaimnut's avatar
markusthenaimnut OP
376 posts
 
Roberjerman - Thanks for the comment. I had sent you a message a day or two ago and it appears you might not have noticed. Can you tell me how many hours you get out of a set of tubes on the H3aa's? I've read somewhere that they will go 10,000 hours, but I'm not really sure how many hours the current set has on them. The  amp comes with test results for all 12 tubes. But I can't imagine not buying a back-up set of tubes, which will cost quite a bit. How often are you having to re-tube your amps?
markusthenaimnut's avatar
markusthenaimnut OP
376 posts
 

@unreceivedogma 

I decided to stick with my humble Quad 909. Simplicity and reliability and the ability to "set it and forget it" are important considerations.

I do appreciate that perhaps I was worrying unnecessarily about the Futtermans. But in any case I still enjoy my Quad 2905s. And now I'm also listening to Altec VOTTs via low powered triode monoblocks.

More to discover