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Trevor Wilson
 
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Default Bang & Olufsen - really as good?


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"Trevor Wilson" wrote in message
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"Trevor Wilson" wrote in message
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"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
ps.com...

Trevor Wilson wrote:
"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
oups.com...
Neither B&O nor Bose offer good value for money.

**That would be YOUR opinion. For many of those who purchase B&O, it
offers
a sense of style not provided by other products and, hence,
represents good
value. Bose, OTOH, represents extremely poor value for money, since
other
products can offer more for less. I suggest to you, however, that,
due to
the prescence of wasteful output autoformers, that McIntosh
amplifiers
represent spectacularly bad value for money.

I don't want to argue the relative merits of autoformer output amps, but
does anyone know why McIntosh uses them, and what advantages they claim
for them?


**They make the amp heavy.
* They allow McIntosh to offer a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) to
gullible consumers.
* They give McIntosh to charge more for the product.
* They have this warm, fuzzy, old fashioned 'feel' about them.


C'mon Trevor, there must be some plausible excuse.


**Why? What is wrong with my reasons? They are perfectly valid and some can
be used to excuse the existence of some tube amps (notably SETs).

I can't believe the
McIntosh design team got together and agreed on the arguments you
mentioned. They must have some technical reason for this design. After
all, they could have made it heavier by just using a bigger power xfmr.


**I provided FOUR reasons, not one.


Is it possible that an autoformer was the way they chose to secure the
same ouput power at any load impedance, instead of the usual constant
voltage out, which would make the maximum output inversely proportional to
the load Z? That has a sensible ring to it.


**Not to any sane person. Speakers are not resistors. Speakers (usually)
present a lot of reactive components in their impedance characteristic. A
transformer is exactly what is NOT needed.

Instead of X watts out into 8 ohms and
2X into 4 ohms, they can offer a unform power output at any nominal load
Z.


**In the real world, even that does not apply. Transformers REFLECT the
impedance of the load into the amplifier.


What do you think?


**I think my reasons are perfectly valid and logical.


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au