Hello from the beautiful city of Lindau in Germany

[VinylSavor]

Hi!

I have been posting in this forum already and my products are occasionally discussed. So I thought why not introduce myself properly.
My name is Thomas Mayer. I manufacture tube amplifiers and preamplifiers. I am based in Lindau which is in the South of Germany, right at lake constance, close to Austria and Switzerland. My company is a small scale operation. I develop, build and test all amplifiers myself. I am running a blog since 2011 on which I show new builds and share insights into what I am doing as well as reports about various events. This is the VinylSavor blog:

https://vinylsavor.blogspot.com

Last weekend I also launched a separate product website to show a selection of the products I am offering:

https://www.vinylsavor.com

On this site there is also some information about my background, philosophy and some words about my goals in sound quality

I am also the owner of Deutsche Elektronenröhren Manufaktur GmbH, the manufacturer of ELROG vacuum tubes. I founded this company in summer 2016 when the former company Elrog went bankrupt. I bought the machines and materials from Elrog and hired the former Elrog production manager. Under the new company we redesigned all Elrog tubes to solve all the reliability issues the former company suffered. We also developed new tube types and now have 10 different types in the portfolio. More information on the website:

https://www.elrog.com

Feel free to contact me or ask in this forum if you have any questions. Also if there is enough interest and the site Admin offers the possibility I would be glad to open a manufacturer sub forum.

Best regards

Thomas

 

[christoph]

Hello Thomas

Nice to read you here

Greetings from the Principality of Liechtenstein

 

[Golum]

Hi Thomas and glad to have you here as I'm quite a big fan of your work.
@christoph - guess on the next visit to Liechtenstein we could drop a note to Thomas and visit him if he is around .

Cheers;
G

 

[Lagonda]

Welcome Thomas, nice to have you here !

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Yes great to have you posting on here Thomas! Wonderful products.

Enjoying the “baby” stereo 46 and 10Y linestage in my system right now.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Hi Thomas, welcome from me as well.

You have Audiophile Bill (otherwise known as Bill LOL) to thank for getting me interested in yr line of amps.

Once I dipped my toe into the world of tubes in 2005 w the Hovland HP200 in 2005, I've fully dived into the tubes world, first w Audion 845s, and now Nat 211s.

I'm soon to audition the Azzolina Hadron field coil horns, and I know they have been voiced by designer Charles Michlin w your amps.

Bill is getting me to seriously consider your amps, and so I have a couple of qs for you.

I may be only able to run to the Octal two-chassis line stage. Am I right in thinking it's not a "cut down" version of your top of the line 10Y?

Ie not a cheap version, but fully fledged design in its own right? Does the Opal lose out much to the 10Y? Indeed if I wasn't totally familiar w the 10Y in a close comparison, would I feel there was much I was losing? In fact, do the Opal and 10Y have different presentations, w some listeners preferring the Opal?

The Azzolina Hadrons if I buy them will go in a dedicated listening space, 5.5m x 12m, with a ht varying from 3m at midline apex down to 1.3m at side walls, 55 sq m area , 110 cub m volume. The Hadrons are conservatively rated at 100dB efficiency for both the horns and woofers, which of yr power amps do you think would best be suited to these spkrs in my space? 46, 45, 300B, 211?

I hope I'm not posing too complex questions at this point.

 

[VinylSavor]

Hi all,

thanks a lot for the warm welcome!

@spiritofmusic

I may be only able to run to the Octal two-chassis line stage. Am I right in thinking it's not a "cut down" version of your top of the line 10Y?

The two chassis Octal preamp you probably heard or which Bill talked about is a full function preamp, including a phono stage. I do have a pure lineage with Octal indirectly heated tubes which you can see here:

https://vinylsavor.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-6ah4-line-stage.html

This is a single chassis linestage

Ie not a cheap version, but fully fledged design in its own right? Does the Opal lose out much to the 10Y? Indeed if I wasn't totally familiar w the 10Y in a close comparison, would I feel there was much I was losing? In fact, do the Opal and 10Y have different presentations, w some listeners preferring the Opal?

My goal is to design amps and preamps at various given price points which offer the maximum possible sound quality at that cost. At certain price points this requires compromises. The 6AH4 linestage offers the same transformer volume control and low impedance output as the bigger 10Y linestage. If you listen to it you will for sure love it, when you compare it directly with the 10Y it will loose something. For me it is important that each step in cost brings an audible improvement in sound quality.

The Azzolina Hadrons if I buy them will go in a dedicated listening space, 5.5m x 12m, with a ht varying from 3m at midline apex down to 1.3m at side walls, 55 sq m area , 110 cub m volume. The Hadrons are conservatively rated at 100dB efficiency for both the horns and woofers, which of yr power amps do you think would best be suited to these spkrs in my space? 46, 45, 300B, 211?

55 sqm of area is quite some space to be filled with sound. With the 45 or 46 you will reach the limits. Those would still be ok in a room half that size but at 55sqm I would at least use a 300B or even 211.

Best regards

Thomas

 

[jeff1225]

Thomas,
Thank you for posting on this forum, I've followed your blog for sometime. Do you have any pictures of your reference system? I'm curious to see what gear (speakers, tables, etc) you prefer to run with you wonderful amps and preamps.

 

[VinylSavor]

Hi Jeffrey,

I don't exactly have a reference system. The system in my workshop is used to test and listen to every amp and preamp before they get delivered. There I use a pair of Azzolina Mojo Level 3 speakers with field coil drivers. The turntable is a Scheu Analog with Lyra Skala cartridge.

In my home system I use my top of the line all silver differential EC8020 phono and matching 10Y all silver differential linestage. I used to have 211 power amps in that system but those got sold recently and I have not decided yet which power amps to use there since the speakers will also be swapped for a pair of Azzolina Hadron which will be built for me. Thee turntable in my home system is a PrimaryControl Kinea with Arrow arm and Lyra Atlas cartridge.

Best regards

Thomas

 

[spiritofmusic]

Thomas, thanks for your prompt replies. I think w my choice of music, 211 over 300B might be the best choice, since I'm as partial to Tangarine Dream as I am to Tchaikovsky.

I'll bear in mind your thoughts on choosing Octal over 10Y or vice versa.

Luckily Bill and The General can help me out here, I think they may be two of your biggest fans.

You're due to own Azzolina Hadrons yourself? Can you let us know of your impressions so far, I know you've had the Mojos at shows. I'm v taken w the fact that the horns and woofers are all field coil driven, the woofers are at least 100dB efficient as are the horns, and the cabinet is extremely elaborate internally. In fact, these Hadrons are kinda the only horns I have any real interest as a big move from my current spkrs.

 

[VinylSavor]

Hi!

I think since sound impressions are subjective, anything I write is pretty much meaningless unless we established a common ground of sound qualities. And this is only possible once people had some joint listening impressions and heard each others comment about something they experienced themselves at the same time.

I now I should not say that as a manufacturer who wants to sell his amplifiers or as a friend of Azzolina who wants to help him sell his speakers. I should rather write some nice sound descriptions.

To give you an impression about my sound philosophy and what I like please read here:

https://www.vinylsavor.com/en/about-me/how-does-it-sound/

But again, nothing replaces actual listening experience. So if you want to know how something sounds, you need listen to it yourself.

Best regards

Thomas

 

[spiritofmusic]

Thomas, that's a very diplomatic answer, and you're quite right not to answer my overly simplistic question.

I have a chance to hear the Hadrons soon, I think via yr 10Y dual differential line stage, field coil supply, and hopefully yr 211 monos.

I've moved from Hovland, to Audion, now Nat, and each change had things in common but many differences. So it will be if I move to yr amps.

I do know for a fact my current tube amps are a little noisy and grungey, going potentially to zero noise w yr amps on high efficiency horns like the Hadrons can only be an advantage.

And taking in one classical concert per week on average is really giving me a good baseline for tone colour and density, timbre and startling dynamics.

Warm and fast, colourful and differentiated, is pretty much how live presents itself, and should be the holy grail in playback.

I'll really be fascinated to gauge this at the aforementioned demo.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Now that you are official, Mr. Mayer, we at WBF extend to you a warm and official welcome!

 

[Woofer and Tweet]

Take what Ron said and DITTO. I checked out your blog site and have put it in my bookmarks. Enjoy.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Thomas, from what you're saying, going from Octal to 10Y just gets you more of everything? So, more colours, stronger colours, more shades of black?

More resolution, but not "just" detail?
10Y is like the Octal, but with "more"?

Or is this an oversimplification?

 

[VinylSavor]

Hi spirit,

Did you have the chance to listen to any of my preamps? May be at the generals place? There you could do a comparison.
Anything I would write can only be misleading and with english not being my mother tongue another source of misunderstanding opens up. For me resolution is equal to detail.

People who listen to the base (octal) line stage usually are blown away by it. I would not be afraid to enter an audition contest with it against anything else. But yes the 10Y is a clear step above that and the all silver differential 10Y does another jump in sound quality. if you have never heard what a difference in sound a directly heated tube like the 10Y does in comparison to an indirectly heated one, just reading about it is rather pointless.

Thomas

 

[spiritofmusic]

Thomas, there is a possibility I'll be able to hear an Octal v 10Y comparison at The General. I very much look fwds to that.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Hi Thomas,

I noticed on your blog that the 10Y preamp can use the 801 tubes and/or the 1602 tubes also. Please could you perhaps describe how these alter presentation / sonic performance.

Best.

 

[Sablon Audio]

Thomas, I was very impressed to learn from Bill that you had used Dave Slagle’s silver autoformer volume control in his/your 10Y preamp. A customer in HK has recently been raving to me about his Emia silver AVC with these modules.

 

[spiritofmusic]

I'm just impressed w EVERYTHING on Thomas' website. I often rail against tyranny of choice, but I'll make an exception here LOL.