Is it possible to get good bass out of a SE two stage amp?

[MikeW]

Is there a way to get more punch in the bass of an Aleph amp? Are you better off with three stage or push pull design?

Jam are you still kicking?

[eLarson]

What load are you trying to push?

[MikeW]

4 to 6 ohms

[Stefano]

It depends mostly by what sort of speakers are you willing to drive, the more they are self-dumped, the better bass you get! I'm using a zen with my sealed Morel and the bass is as good and tight, as with my conventional amp, far better than my valve (el84) amp.
Hope it helps!

[MikeW]

I was more interested in the amp design than speaker matching.

[drakonis]

Mmmm...

Very often I read about some people complaining that the Aleph's are bass shy, wanting more punch or asking about the bass quality....

In my experience the Aleph's are not that bass shy or lacking quality even when they are two stages.

About a year more or less I did finish an Aleph 'mini' [ around 10 watts ] and after checking that the dc output was in no way harmful to a speaker I hooked it to a pair of Sony mid-fi baffles [ they were part of a 100W home theater combo -multi stage, push-pull class AB-, reflex speakers ] and to my surprise the bass had more quality to my ears and it had more definition [ -quality-, I was able to discern diff. bass tones and range versus a 'thud' that seems to promote the sense of 'punch' ] and coherence but since I was feeding the Aleph 'mini' with a discman I was able to turn on the 'supperbass' on it and the resulting bass was certainly louder, overhelming, punchier and very strong despite its 10 watts.

After that experience a friend brought a pair of baffles made by himself ( sealed ) that had a pair of local bass speakers ( Steren, around 8 inch ) with a very heavy magnet and in my opinion very low SPL to test them with the Aleph 'mini'. The results were less fortunate in terms of 'thud' and loudness [ran out of gas, 10W] even when the bass quality remained the same...

After that we routed those speakers ( my friend's ) to the Sony amp and we could observe the same behavior, less SPL at the same volume setting than the original Sony baffles so we had to really turn up more volume marks in order to have an equivalent bass loudness. Of course, the Sony amp. was able to really drive up the boxes ( 100W ).

So, in my humble opinion, the speaker selection really matters when matting them to an amplifier or viceversa... but if you like some sort of guaranty, well, try having at hand an amplifier able to deliver maybe more or around 100W.

Drakonis.

[mpmarino]

Originally posted by MikeW
Is there a way to get more punch in the bass of an Aleph amp? Are you better off with three stage or push pull design?

Bridge them, maybe

....sorry, I couldn't resist


Seriously, I know what you mean. The bass is fine but it seems to be a bit mellow or laid back. It's definitely not a subwoofer amp! The highs are to die for though, and any improvement in bass that may somehow affect those highs would be a shame in my opinion. Makes it a perfect bi-amp scenario if you ask me.

[Nelson Pass]

Originally posted by mpmarino
Bridge them, maybe

You might be surprised - This often works.

[Zen Mod]

Originally posted by MikeW
Is there a way to get more punch in the bass of an Aleph amp? Are you better off with three stage or push pull design?

simple solution
build bigger Aleph

[Circlomanen]

Run more current through the output stage (with added heatsinking of course). That way you get more gain and more current available to the speaker along with a slightly better dampingfactor.