MartinLogans and Cary CAD-805s / electrostats and SET amps

chattaudio

I had some I built that were based on the Wavac 805’s even better than the Cary with my ML’s. Even if bi-amp’d and just driving the ML’s esl panels with the 805’s, you’ll get a severe roll off in the highs. All ML esl panels go down below 1ohm!! in the HF, and have nasty -60 degree phase angle and 3ohms at 4.5khz, and tubes just don’t cope with it and act like a tone control.

Stereophile on the Montis
A figure of 0.55 ohm at 20kHz. Either way, that this speaker is a difficult load for the partnering amplifier to drive is compounded by the high electrical phase angle
https://www.stereophile.com/images/912Montisfig1.jpg

Put a good high current high biased Class-A/B on the Montis like a used Parasound Halo A21 or new A21+ if you have the money. You could if you want to be tight with money, even try a used Halo A23 on the panels.

https://parasound.com/a21.php
https://parasound.com/a21+.php
https://parasound.com/a23.php

Cheers George

@georgehifi Thanks, George!  So basically, I am looking for a high-current SS amp to drive MLs, more or less the opposite of SET, correct?

Yes, unless you want it to act like a tone control and give colorations.
Cheers George

A tube amp that works well with Martin Logan speakers is the Music Reference RM-200. It was designed to handle loads down to 1 ohm.