Author Topic: absolutely gigantic amp tubes  (Read 3856 times)

Offline Nick B

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absolutely gigantic amp tubes
« on: October 31, 2019, 04:47:37 PM »
I found OCD Hi-Fi Guy on YouTube. He has some incredible equipment from a few companies I hadn’t heard of and these amp tubes are huge. The amps are from NAT Audio (of Serbia). I haven’t looked for a price on these monos...

https://youtu.be/nEOgfYX_2Hw

Orchard Starkrimson Ultra amp
Supratek Chardonnay preamp
JMR Voce Grande speakers
Border Patrol SEi dac
Holo Red streamer
Hapa Aero digital coax
WyWires Silver cables
TWL Digital American II p cord
Audio Envy p cords
Roon, Tidal, Qobuz
PI Audio UberBUSS

Offline Guy 13

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absolutely gigantic amp tubes
« Reply #1 on: October 31, 2019, 06:10:11 PM »
I found OCD Hi-Fi Guy on YouTube. He has some incredible equipment from a few companies I hadn’t heard of and these amp tubes are huge. The amps are from NAT Audio (of Serbia). I haven’t looked for a price on these monos...

https://youtu.be/nEOgfYX_2Hw

Hi Nick B.
WOW !
Impressive even if I could afford it,
not really interested to have it in my living room, even in a dedicated room.
Would need a serious air conditionning here on planet Vietnam
or in Canada could be the main heating system.
That's a break from reviews on power cables and interconnects...
Thanks for sharing.

Guy 13
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prior to moving back to Canada.

Offline P.I.

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Re: absolutely gigantic amp tubes
« Reply #2 on: October 31, 2019, 09:55:23 PM »
You should see some of the water cooled transmitting tubes.  The MW8974 weighs 175 pounds and puts out 1.25 megawatts single ended...
"A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument." - Hilmar von Campe

Offline Nick B

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Re: absolutely gigantic amp tubes
« Reply #3 on: October 31, 2019, 11:54:21 PM »
You should see some of the water cooled transmitting tubes.  The MW8974 weighs 175 pounds and puts out 1.25 megawatts single ended...

Yikes... was curious and looked it up.
http://www.tubecollectors.org/eimac/archives/8974.pdf
If somebody has built an amp for this tube, I don’t want to know how big it is and how much it costs  :roll:
Orchard Starkrimson Ultra amp
Supratek Chardonnay preamp
JMR Voce Grande speakers
Border Patrol SEi dac
Holo Red streamer
Hapa Aero digital coax
WyWires Silver cables
TWL Digital American II p cord
Audio Envy p cords
Roon, Tidal, Qobuz
PI Audio UberBUSS

Offline Guy 13

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Re: absolutely gigantic amp tubes
« Reply #4 on: November 01, 2019, 01:46:51 AM »
You should see some of the water cooled transmitting tubes.  The MW8974 weighs 175 pounds and puts out 1.25 megawatts single ended...

Yikes... was curious and looked it up.
http://www.tubecollectors.org/eimac/archives/8974.pdf
If somebody has built an amp for this tube, I don’t want to know how big it is and how much it costs  :roll:

Hi Nick B.
Holly cow !
That's a mega tube !
You need the whole hydro electric dam to power that tube...

Guy 13
Grace Digital Mondo RIT
Cambridge Mini sub 2.1
Schiit Fulla 2 DAC
Schiit SYS PCC
Sony Passive Bookshelf speakers
Lot more stuff on storage
prior to moving back to Canada.

Offline rollo

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Re: absolutely gigantic amp tubes
« Reply #5 on: November 01, 2019, 06:47:53 AM »
 That is cool. What tube is it ?

charles
contact me  at rollo14@verizon.net or visit us on Facebook
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Offline P.I.

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Re: absolutely gigantic amp tubes
« Reply #6 on: November 01, 2019, 09:38:57 AM »
You should see some of the water cooled transmitting tubes.  The MW8974 weighs 175 pounds and puts out 1.25 megawatts single ended...

Yikes... was curious and looked it up.
http://www.tubecollectors.org/eimac/archives/8974.pdf
If somebody has built an amp for this tube, I don’t want to know how big it is and how much it costs  :roll:

Hi Nick B.
Holly cow !
That's a mega tube !
You need the whole hydro electric dam to power that tube...

Guy 13
The total filament current of 1280A is mind boggling!  Can you imagine the wire size to handle that continuously?
"A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument." - Hilmar von Campe

Offline rollo

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Re: absolutely gigantic amp tubes
« Reply #7 on: November 02, 2019, 05:08:48 PM »
  Checked out site. This company makes some very interesting products. The 211 amp  looks good and price not crazy.

charles
contact me  at rollo14@verizon.net or visit us on Facebook
Lamm Industries - Aqua Acoustic, Formula & La Scala DAC- INNUOS  - Rethm - Kuzma - QLN - Audio Hungary Qualiton - Fritz speakers -Gigawatt -Vinnie Rossi,TWL, Swiss Cables, Merason DAC.

Online Folsom

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Re: absolutely gigantic amp tubes
« Reply #8 on: November 03, 2019, 09:06:13 AM »
I wonder how linear it actually is...

Offline steve

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Re: absolutely gigantic amp tubes
« Reply #9 on: November 03, 2019, 07:04:48 PM »
I wonder how linear it actually is...

I agree with Jeremy, a question mark for me as well.

With such high voltages, and being single ended, some problems come to mind.

1. The high voltages are typically 1,500 volts, give or take. Peak voltages of approximately 2,200 volts are possible, or more. With 2,000 volts, peak voltages in excess of 3,500 volts are possible, 2,500 volts, peak voltages in excess of 3,800 are possible. Of course, sufficient safety margin above the peak voltage is necessary for long life.

2. The insulation requirements are substantial, with accompanying problems to overcome. For instance, thicker insulation requirements of the output transformers (opt) increases the leakage inductance, thus lower high frequency response, unless special precautions are incorporated. I won't delve into such.

3. If designed with DC current flow through the primary winding, primary inductance is substantially reduced unless a larger core, or specialized core is incorporated. IN any case, complexity certainly increases.

4. If parafeed is used for zero DC current flow through the primary winding, then a proper high voltage capacitor with proper ufd value is necessary. Also, accurate reproduction capabilities is quite important as we added a part. (We already see strings discussing low voltage film capacitors.)

5. The power supply itself is tougher to design. This will require either series electrolytics, or high voltage oil types in parallel in order to increase the capacitance. A few ufd won't cut it for sufficient deep bass response.

One could purposely limit the low frequency response (a high pass design) and use a sub woofer/ss amp combination. That would allow for a higher frequency design of the OPT, which is good.

To give one a sense of how high frequency response affects lower frequencies, consider a -12/octave slope, which can occur (Slope of OPT depends upon Q at resonance.). If we design for

-3db at 40khz (I have seen such spec)
-2db  occurs at  ~31.5kc
-1db  at  ~20.5kc
-,5db at  ~14.2kc
-,2db at    ~7.2kc

Imo, it is much easier to design an SET using parallel tubes and lower voltages.

Cheers

steve




« Last Edit: November 03, 2019, 07:20:41 PM by steve »
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Offline Response Audio

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Re: absolutely gigantic amp tubes
« Reply #10 on: November 05, 2019, 02:14:14 PM »
NAT has been around for quite some time as well as these amplifiers. They had a pretty good preamp at one time.
I would run them.as I live in New York and won't pay New York State Electrical & Gas (NYSEG) their outrageous rates which would cause my electric meter to spin so fast it would catch on fire if running these amps🤔 But they do sound pretty good.
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Offline Nick B

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Re: absolutely gigantic amp tubes
« Reply #11 on: November 05, 2019, 06:31:45 PM »
NAT has been around for quite some time as well as these amplifiers. They had a pretty good preamp at one time.
I would run them.as I live in New York and won't pay New York State Electrical & Gas (NYSEG) their outrageous rates which would cause my electric meter to spin so fast it would catch on fire if running these amps🤔 But they do sound pretty good.

In So Utah, I can afford the electric bill, but not the price  :roll: I think they retail
for $40,000. I’d love to see and hear them in person...would be great fun  :thumb:
Orchard Starkrimson Ultra amp
Supratek Chardonnay preamp
JMR Voce Grande speakers
Border Patrol SEi dac
Holo Red streamer
Hapa Aero digital coax
WyWires Silver cables
TWL Digital American II p cord
Audio Envy p cords
Roon, Tidal, Qobuz
PI Audio UberBUSS