Thoughts on mating ML ESL 11 A's to a butler TDB 2250 hybrid amp


Looking at the butler TDB 2250 Amp to drive ML ESL 11 a's kinda settled on the Parasound Halo A21 until was pointed in the Butler direction. Any thoughts? Will be using a Linn Majik DSM as source and pre amp.


pvmike

Showing 2 responses by dep14

I've owned a couple Butler 2250's over the years, along with a 5150.

Very, very nice amp for the money. Small company that I believe only sells direct now.  There used to be a small dealer down in North Carolina that gave decent deals on them.

You could likely find a bargain used, and send it back to Butler for their re-bias/update for about $300.00.

My neighbor has the ML 11's, and we did drive them with my amp a few times, it sounded really great.  

With the powered woofer, the Butler has the muscle and current to drive that panel, but the tubes give just a bit of that fullness that I think benefits a ML speaker.

It always ran at a reasonable temperature also.

Personally I think it give a lot of what the BHK amps are supposed to do at a much lower price.  With your powered woofer section it won't matter quite as much, but I think the Butler had every bit of the bass response as the BHK amp.

BK must be doing something right and he certainly knows tone.  He builds pedals for all sorts of the top guitarists in history.


@audiotroy

Butler doesn’t have dealers anymore.

But that’s beside the point. It’s a good sounding amp in my opinion, especially for the money as they can be found for under $1500 used. But it’s a small company, guitar pedals seem to be the main business and it’s basically BK and his assistant. So... if that ever changes one could be SOL. Lots of small companies like that.

The Monads, if you want to go there. I agree, way, way, way overpriced. Cool looking, but not special enough to justify the price.

I would agree that BAT amps are excellent, a used one under 2k would be an excellent purchase for the OP.

A used BAT VK200 would be outstanding, I sold mine last year for 1k, I wanted to keep it as I felt it punched way, way, way above it’s weight. Ballsy as all heck in the low end. I think the Butler Top end has a bit more sparkle, I think the VK200 is a better amp overall.

Classe, depends on the amp.

I’ve owned all of the above over the years. (except the monads)