Tenor Hybrid v. VTL MB-450 Sig.

I would like to offer a somewhat contrarian view. Please keep in mind that I have only heard the Tenors at shows and not in my home. First, the Tenor 75 watt OTL is a very special amplifier from the mid bass through the treble. Unfortunately somewhat underpowered for my current speakers. The bass is good but more akin to what one might expect from a tubed amplifier than solid state/high current, lacking some control and extension but very organic. The hybrids clearly have different and most would say better bass, better controlled with greater focus and slam. They also have better dynamics at the loud end of the spectrum. What they lack for me is the extreme textural and timbral dexterity that the Tenor 75's exhibit. They also exhibit some discontinuity between the bass and the remainder of the frequency spectrum.

If you need the extra power, I would suggest listening to the latest version of the Lamm hybrids which I thonk are excellent. Mike and Nellie at Audio Federation have these on demo and have listened to them with a wide variety of different speakers and can talk knowledgeably about them as well as the Edge products.

Good listening.

Hello Brooks, I would not commit to the purchase until I got to hear the amp in my system. I recently heard the Tenor OTL's and the mono Tenor hybrid's and heard a lot more music coming out of the OTL's. Please let your ears be the judge. Good luck, Tom

In one of tenor's ads. they offer in home auditioning. Have you contacted tenor?

If I were you I would put your money towards a more full range set of speakers and forget the amps for now as the VTL will get you down the road in fine style.....What is the nonsense about a restocking fee? You are auditioning a production amplifier, not custom goods........

Brooks, as a previous owner of the Tenor OTL's and a current Tenor 300 watt Hybrid owner to me there is no doubt that as much as loved the Tenor OTL's, the Hybrids do pretty much everything better. and this is on the Kharma Exquisites (an easy load) in a small room (spl's are not excessive).

over the last 2 years i had heard the Tenor OTL's on many different speakers and compared to many different amps.....so as my reference i was very clear on how it stacked up. the Hybrids are not only much better than my personal reference but will work on pretty much any speaker......so if you do go to another speaker that does present a more difficult load the Tenor Hybrids should be fully up to the task.

your dilemma is understandable. due to very limited supply the Hybrids are really not availible for an in-home demo. there are just not many sets of these amps out there yet. the Crumpster isn't wrong.....but you will most likely run into the same issue there.....how can you home demo most really top 'full-range' speakers that would be a big step up over your Merlins?

so you are back to the question of whether the Tenor Hybrids are enough of a 'step-up' over the VTL's to justify the purchase without trying them in your system first.

assuming that the Tenor 150 Stereo amp is on par sonically with the 300 watt mono version (and i understand that they do sound the same), the hybrids do make as much sense as any other similar investment you could make in your system.

additional note; i was very skeptical about the Tenor Hybrids. i expected to prefer my OTL's. even after i heard them in San Francisco at the Stereophile Show last June where they were clearly better......i was skeptical that other issues might have been involved. when i finally got them in my room in August it took about 10 seconds before it was totally clear that these amps were simply in another league compared to anything else.

good luck.