I have a Audio Innovations First 2A3 tube amp. Slightly faulty at the moment and will require service. I use this with Border Patrol PSU. I got a TK2050 from Hifimediy recently to keep me going until I got the First going again. Wow! This thing is superb - I use SLA batteries and quality stepped attenuator. Question is - do I stick with TK , get First sorted and then run in biamp mode ?? Say, the TK on bass , with tubes on midrange/high ?? Is it worth the hassle and expense. Shall I get another TK for £25 and run biamp with that?? Any thoughts welcome !
Biamp TK2050 with tube amp - any benefit ?
- Thread starter hillbear
- Start date
I wonder if you would run into some timing issues with the TK being quite fast and the tubes not...just a thought.
BTW, I am wondering if it is worth it to spend $40-50 for a quality stepped attenuator or an AlPS is sufficient. Do you notice a significant improvement with the stepped attenuator?
BTW, I am wondering if it is worth it to spend $40-50 for a quality stepped attenuator or an AlPS is sufficient. Do you notice a significant improvement with the stepped attenuator?
Transit times in amps are on the order of nanoseconds. And given the lowpass filter needed at the D amp's output, the bandwidths and risetimes won't be all that different anyway.
Using a separate solid state amp on the bass is one of the greatest improvements one can make to a tube power amp.
If by "better" bass, you mean "higher LF cutoff, higher LF source impedance, and higher LF distortion," then yes, tube amps have better bass. And with increased intermod, that "better bass" helps to increase midrange distortion as well. Even better, the requirements for an output transformer to handle deep bass at power mean a larger core, so increased leakage inductance and much poorer HF performance. w00t!
Right, exactly. Now, what's the woofer displacement during the music- 1cm or so? That represents 29,000 ns right there.
At transit times of 10ns, this represents a speaker displacement of 0.003mm! I suspect that this isn't going to upset timing cues.
I was thinking... if the distances of the speakers from the listener's position was different by 1cm, it should introduce a lot of spatial effect.
Or on some speakers the tweeters are behind the woofer. Maybe that's why horns sound nice. Maybe not.
The depth of the cone is usually more than 1cm isn't it? Must be bad to have some parts of the sound from the same cone reaching 29µs late. Mmm... dome drivers anyone?
Or on some speakers the tweeters are behind the woofer. Maybe that's why horns sound nice. Maybe not.
The depth of the cone is usually more than 1cm isn't it? Must be bad to have some parts of the sound from the same cone reaching 29µs late. Mmm... dome drivers anyone?
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Use the TK on the woofers, the 2A3 on the mids/highs. It's simple. Your ears, your soul and your dancing feet will thank you for it.
That's how I run my system and I've heard several world class systems that do the same. The Tripath amp may not end up being your ultimate choice for the bass, but the concept is good, very good.
That's how I run my system and I've heard several world class systems that do the same. The Tripath amp may not end up being your ultimate choice for the bass, but the concept is good, very good.