Tube Amp for Martin Logan Speakers


Hi, I love tube sound through my Martin Logan Aerius-i fronts and Cinema-i center. I currently have a Butler 5150 which is a hybrid, but it busted on me and would cost $700 to fix. I've had china stereo tube amps that were pretty good and gave true tube sound, but not enough drive for higher volumes. I live in condo, so not like I can blast music anyways but still. I got the Butler because I wanted 5 channel tube sound for home theatre (The piercing sound from my Denon 3801 receiver was not pleasant to my ears). It appears there are only three multi-channel tube amps around, from Mcintosh, Butler 5150, and Dared DV-6C. The latter two are hybrids, and the last one was one of the worst tube amps i've ever heard. I have no clue why 6Moons gave the Dared a 2010 award, but maybe it's because it produces only 65W.

So since multichannel tube amps are hard to come by, and they tend to be hybrid, I was thinking maybe it would be best to get three true tube monoblocks to power my fronts. Thing is I wonder if they will be underpowered for my speakers, and not sure which ones are decent for the price. Maybe China made ones would suffice, and they still go for pretty expensive price. I'm wondering if anybody knows of a decent powerful tube monoblock that is affordable, because I can't pay $3000 per block. or maybe best to just repair my Butler. Thing is, I'm not confident that it is reliable. The tubes are soldered in which is weird, and i've taken it to a couple repair guys who both said that the design is not good, because it's very tight inside and more susceptible to being fried from DC voltage areas. it's too sensitive.

Any suggestions for tube monoblocks, even if china made ones? the holy grail for me would be Mcintosh tube amp, but they are hard to come by. Thanks.

smurfmand70
Bifwynne, the Manley Snapper from the website looks as though it has 1 set of 8ohm speaker terminals?.
It states in the specs that it's damping factor is 4.7 (into 8ohms?) which would mean it's output impedance is around 1.7ohms. If it's a 4ohm tap which I doubt, then the output impedance is .85ohm.

Cheers George
I could be very wrong or just confusing the Manley with VTL, but I seem to remember that they came with 5 Ohm outputs. Caveat, I seem to remember that my memory was once better, but I could be mistaken about that too.:-)
Unsound: I just looked at the Snapper owners manual, and it states the output impedance is 1.5ohm, so the tap is less than 8ohms but more than true 4ohms.
This 1.5ohms output impedance was also measured and verified by Sound and Vision review of the Snapper.

Cheers George
Hi Unsound,

The Manley Snapper has a single output tap, which is described as having been optimized for a 5 ohm load. Its output impedance is specified as 1.5 ohms, as George indicated. Its specified damping factor of 4.7 is slightly inconsistent with that (8 ohms/4.7 = 1.7 ohms; 5 ohms/4.7 = 1.06 ohms), but is in the same rough ballpark.

You might be recalling having read something in which the author confused the output impedance of a tap with the load impedance the tap is optimized for. A not uncommon error.

Best regards,
-- Al