Most Respected Amplifier Designers

[Trab]

From my perspective:

J.C Verdier, some say best designs for 845 and 300B tubes.
Ken Shindo, unique musicality.
Jean Hiraga.

They all have built great amplifiers in 90's.

 

[bonzo75]

From my perspective:

J.C Verdier, some say best designs for 845 and 300B tubes.
Ken Shindo, unique musicality.
Jean Hiraga.

They all have built great amplifiers in 90's.

I heard many Hiraga designs on the Altec, though not built by him but by his followers, and they were quite poor sounding. I also heard on the new Celestion axiperiodic driver, a driver made by the PhD in horns from Norway.

I investigated further consulting the guys whose Altec designs I found fascinating, and apparently Hiraga's parallel cross over was the other wrong thing about his design, while these guys advocated "ancient series crossover". Technically I could not tell you the difference myself.

Then I came to the discs that had been cut by Hiraga for his followers to use for audition and to me they showed lack of musical knowledge, so I am not following his approach anymore. I do appreciate that led to the DIY deluge of horns in France and that is a great thing.

 

[Trab]

Thank's Bonzo !
Good to know you have first hand experience of a'la Hiraga DIY designs and you did quite a deep investigation about it. You have postponed my plans for purchising one of Hiragas designs.
In the end, it's always better to audition before purchasing, no matter who built the amplifier, and what the internet says about it.

 

[bonzo75]

Thank's Bonzo !
Good to know you have first hand experience of a'la Hiraga DIY designs and you did quite a deep investigation about it. You have postponed my plans for purchising one of Hiragas designs.
In the end, it's always better to audition before purchasing, no matter who built the amplifier, and what the internet says about it.

There is a big online community following Hiraga but most of them have not met him nor heard his system.

 

[asindc]

Hello,

Why do you believe this?

To be fair, I haven’t heard every SS amp for under $10K. That said, I have not heard any other SS amp that was available for under $10K MSRP that was as good as the original JC1. Among those I’ve heard, the difference in sound quality between the JC1 and others was not subtle.

 

[RalphRS]

JE Sugden. The first company to develop Class A amplifiers in the 60's and still going strong today.

 

[CVMAN01]

I second Wilson Shen and Clayton Audio. M300's are pure class A muscle with musicality.

 

[bazelio]

I read on Audiogon that Tim de Paravicini has liver cancer, which spread from his colon. I'm supposing he doesn't have long. Sad news.

 

[Blackmorec]

Julian Charles Pendergast Vereker....self taught designer who founded Naim Audio and really was the first to build an amplifier with true PRaT (at least amongst any of the amplifiers I tried at the time)

Vladimir Lamm.....who designs and builds truly lovely sounding amplifiers

Victor Khomenko....Russian educated electronics engineer who founded Balanced Audio Technologies and released the first tube amplifier to offer both SOTA imaging and PRaT (at least the first in my experience, which isn’t vast), based on very pure, minimalist, fully differential circuits.

 

[MasterChief]

Dan D'Agostino

 

[andromedaaudio]

Ken stevens CAT no 1 .
Designers of the old levinsion gear ML 32 etc .
Halcro designers

 

[Joao@altheamusica]

There is a big online community following Hiraga but most of them have not met him nor heard his system.

Have youn met him in person? Reading your respectless comments I assume you've met him not. Jean Hiraga is a nice and warm-hearted person which should be attended more respectful.

 

[bonzo75]

Have youn met him in person? Reading your respectless comments I assume you've met him not. Jean Hiraga is a nice and warm-hearted person which should be attended more respectful.

I don't disagree he might be nice. As mentioned I met those who follow his designs and didn't like it sonically. There was no disrespect. It is just me saying sonically it doesn't cut it which is what it is as far as I am concerned.

 

[fbhifi]

Three pages and no mention of Herve...

Herve Deletraz - DarTZeel

Arguably, the finest sounding SS amps extant.

 

[microstrip]

Thank's Bonzo !
Good to know you have first hand experience of a'la Hiraga DIY designs and you did quite a deep investigation about it. You have postponed my plans for purchising one of Hiragas designs.
In the end, it's always better to audition before purchasing, no matter who built the amplifier, and what the internet says about it.

Sometime in the late 80's I listened and even built some of the Hiraga designs. Although very simple, his designs rely mainly on semiconductors that were/are not easy to source and should be carefully matched with great precision. Most of the assembled kits or copies being sold used the so called "equivalent" parts that make it sound miserable and even unappropriated type of resistors.

I can't remember exactly the type but we build a class A amplifier using around 1 Farad capacity and enormous power transformers that sounded great (according to our standards of that time) with the ESL57 or some old Snell speakers. A good friend built one design using several car batteries - he used it with some old JBL's.

If you can read french, the articles describing his circuits are now available in the net.

Never built anything from Kaneda, however.

 

[XCop5089]

Bill Conrad and Lew Johnson.

 

[Joao@altheamusica]

I don't disagree he might be nice. As mentioned I met those who follow his designs and didn't like it sonically. There was no disrespect. It is just me saying sonically it doesn't cut it which is what it is as far as I am concerned.

Thanks for your answer and maybe I've respnded to fast, sorry !
But please let me say that with those systems should be lived with, and listen to music, some more time... but I agree that we all have a personal taste and should respect that, for me there is not a "better", there is only a "different"
Enjoy the music

 

[bonzo75]

Thanks for your answer and maybe I've respnded to fast, sorry !
But please let me say that with those systems should be lived with, and listen to music, some more time... but I agree that we all have a personal taste and should respect that, for me there is not a "better", there is only a "different"
Enjoy the music

Not really, if 8/8 of them don't work, in different rooms, there is nothing to live with. They were pretty wrong off from the basics, and amp, horns, and music selection in so many systems are sufficient for me.

 

[heihei]

Three pages and no mention of Herve...

Herve Deletraz - DarTZeel

Arguably, the finest sounding SS amps extant.

458 / 468 maybe, but my wife described his lesser amps as like having shards of glass thrown at her.

For me:

David Berning
Thomas Mayer
The guys at Audionet who did the Scientist series

 

[spiritofmusic]

Bob Hovland. I was distraught as a Hovland amps owner when the company folded.