[jwvm]

On Mar 26, 12:24=A0am, Audio Empire wrote:

snip


The first thing that I noticed was that while my guess was that the amp
wouldn't be able to elicit more than a peep from the M-Ls, I was quite wr=
ong.
I got normal listening levels with the volume control only cracked to abo=
ut
the 10 o'clock position (all the way closed is about 8 o'clock). That was
startling enough, but what came next was even more startling. =A0The amps
sounded every bit as good as any modern amp. Now, I didn't do any DBTs
against my reference amp or any such thing as that, I just listened. The
little Eicos had solid, tight bass (often a failing of older tube amps) b=
ut
these had huge output transformers for their power - easily as big as the
Acrosound untra-linear transformers that rival Dynaco used in their MK II
monoblock amps (50 Watts/channel), and I attrubute their decent bass to
those! =A0Mids were clear and clean with good presence on vocals. Highs w=
ere
clean, articulate, and didn't sound particularly rolled-off. =A0This real=
ly
surprised me as the impedance of the M-Ls drops to under 2 Ohms at 20 Khz=
..

Amplifier technology was reasonably advanced in the 1950's. The
requirements for linear amplification were well understood and with
some care it was possible to obtain good results. Careful measurements
will reveal a number of deficiencies compared to modern amplifiers but
they may not be easily heard. The low impedance of your speakers at 20
KHz is unlikely to be an issue since there is very little energy at
that frequency and lower frequencies mask this part of the spectrum.
Many people cannot hear that high anyway.

The only place I noticed any distress at all was on loud crescendos or wh=
en I
pushed the amp to high average levels of volume with the control well pas=
t
the noon position.

Modern technology makes it easy to design low-cost high-power high-
quality amplifiers to avoid this limitation.