@immatthewj You don't have to dig deep on this one. The Dynaco ST70 is arguably the most famous ultra-linear amplifier made although all the Dynaco amps were ultra-linear.
I hate to say it, but now I think maybe I like my amp in ultralinear mode versus triode
It's a Cary V-12; it features a dozen EL34s and each pair has a switch in between them that configures that pair to either triode or ultralinear. In full triode Cary listed in the specs that it makes 50 wpc and in full ultralinear 100 wpc. For most of the twenty three years that I have owned this amp I have always felt that I preferred triode except for the occasions that I wanted to full out blast (it has literally been many years since I've felt the need to full out blast).
However, today I experimented with a couple of things in my system, and after listening to the same "Jazz Essentials" (compilation) red book CD a couple of times all the way through, the next thing I experimented with was switching to full ultralinear.
Maybe there was more "PRaT"? (Which is a term I am still not sure that I completely grasp.) Maybe . . . but what I do feel I noted for sure was that the imaging (particularly the imaging in the center) had more weight (meatier?) and was presented more forward, which I actually like.
I put a few more hours in (one more time with Jazz Essentials, Holly Cole/It Happened One Night, Dave's True Story/Sex Without Bodies, selected tracks from Rebecca Pigeon/The Raven and Once Blue/self titled and Norah Jones/Feels Like Home) after switching to ultralinear. (No booze during this session, just coffee.) The jury is still out on this, but I do have some CDs in mind that I want to listen to over the next few days as I continue to evaluate.
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@decooney , well, okay, but you did tell me that the only tube you wound up using were the Chinese Ruby branded EL34s, right? At the time I needed to retube that amp, Jim had a bunch of tubes listed in his inventory, including the GLs, which was part of the reason I contacted him for that retubing. (The last I read he said he was retiring and prior to that wasn't going to sell any tubes made in Russia anymore.) I was quite happy with those re-issued Tung Sols, and I will say that he gave me what seemed to be better personalized service than any other tube seller I've bought from (with the possible exception some NOS small tubes from of Andy from Michigan). Jim would send me an email every day or so telling me how the matching process was going, and as I recall, it took a few days or maybe even a week until he emailed me telling me he had two matched sex-tets ready to ship. A couple of years prior to that I had bought a dozen reissued Mullard EL34s from Viva, and it was wham, bam, thank you ma-am, and I had them, but they didn't run long at all (about two years) before the bias(es) started doing goofy things. Anyway, as another aside question, did you ever experiment with running your V12 configured in anything but FULL triode or FULL ultralinear? I mean like 1/3 + 2/3s? I know that the owner's manual says only run FULL one way or the other, and after the amp arrived to me I talked to Kirk Owens about it, and he didn't sound too crazy about the idea. . . . I know that the Stereophile review said it was okay, but I always felt better about defaulting to what the manufacturer said than what Stereophile said. I think I remember that I may have tried it for a real real short time, but I do not remember how I felt about it, meaning it was nothing at all close to as dramatic as the Mesa Baron was. |
Thank you for that, @atmasphere , that's a nice nutshell that even a layman (at best) like me can just about grasp. |
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