What are your thoughts of the Tower design of amps

I'm also with Brian- that tower design is more suitable for mono amp than for stereo that will eventually occupy less floor area.

I think you guys nailed it Brian. I've never seen a tower type amp that wasn't a mono-bloc-- and I do like the looks of the Levinson H amps and also Classe's new 200 and 350 monos. Cheers. Craig

I like it in the mono blocs,but not for stereo.I have a stereo Cary Rocket 88 tube amp with the two green tuning eyes.I never get tired of looking at it,especially in the dark.....beautiful.

An amp with a vertical configuration is better arranged for convection (rising heat causing air currents) cooling than horizontally arranged amps. This is because there is more surface area along the sides of the amp where the heat sinks are normally located. There is so much surface area that the manufacturer may be able to "hide" the heat sink and/or avoid having lots of sharp aluminum extrusions on the sides. With a well designed vertical amp a designer may be able to eliminate a cooling fan in a design that would otherwise require one.

I've had a lot of opportunity to listen to my amp new designs in both "flat" (horizontal) and "tower" (vertical) arrangements. The circuitry that I provide in my upgrades for older Counterpoint SA-type amps go into those older horizontal chassis, while the newest implementation of the technology goes into the new tower-type Aria WT amps and I gotta say that I like the sound and layout much better in the tower chassis than in the horizontal chassis. The transformer, which goes in the bottom cavity where the AC wiring and other stuff fit, doesn't get very hot -- I target less than a 15C temp rise. Then above that there is a layer of plated steel, followed by the amplifier's circuit board. The heat-generating tubes are locate at the front of the circuit board with plenty of room above them (pics at www.ariaaudio.com), while the very tall sides of the package are used as output stage heatsinks and afford a whole ton of cooling surface, much more than I could get if I made a "flat" amp like so many I made before.

I tend to agree that the mono versions of the amps are very cool when you have one next to each speaker.

Michael Elliott