[Berndt]

http://www.electra-print.com/211a2.php
These amps will be at my house this saturday the 26th.
Jack Elliano is a friend of a friend and will not be attending, FWIW.
I'm shooting for 1pm start time.
Will be running the Randall preamp and phono stage as well as the recent empire diy tt.
616 grand avenue, south sanfrancisco.
Bring your vinyl.
Look forward to seeing everyone, Regards Bill.

[mgalusha]

Bill,

Please post your impressions of these amps, I have read over the schematic and the article about them in AudioXPress several times.

Mike

[Berndt]

[JoshK]

That doesn't look big enough to have a ton of iron in it, nor are other tubes showing, so I am assuming this is one of his opamps driving the 211 into A2.  Pretty cool.  I am interested in how it would compare to a more conventional SET, but I am sure you probably don't have one available to compare right?

[JoshK]

Or I could just follow the link and answer that myself.    I hadn't seen this schematic on their website but was familiar with the other A2 designs they published. 

[JoshK]

P.S. For those who might wish to build something like this, I'll share a hint.  The GM70 is very similar to the 211 in many ways, and is much cheaper to source. 

[Berndt]

I was thinking more along the lines of an 845 for the creamy midrange.
What type of sound is a gm70 considered to manifest?

[Berndt]

Only one other set, a elliano 300b that a friend has. Quite familiar with it's sound on my rig.

[JoshK]

I am not sure if the 845 is a good candidate for A2 operation.  I haven't seen whether it has curves that demonstrate grid current operation or not.  I am pretty sure the GM70 would be fine though with A2.  Some tubes apparently don't operate well in A2 and some do. 

There is a GM70 boat anchor club (email forum) that I am part of.  Lots of folks on that forum who build huge amps in the transmitter style category.  GM70 has a pretty strong reputation, some like it better than 211 or 845, some don't.  Matter of opinion I guess. 

[Berndt]

Gm70 looks promising, I guess the copperplate is the one to have and their plate dissapating value is different?
I like the price vs 211 prices.

[Berndt]

Had our get together, 6 guys made the show.
Started out with the chinese 211's and the amps had good bass with nice imaging and were less rolled off on top than my jolida music envoys which were 211 pp amps.
I had some GE 211's hanging out so we slipped those in place and the difference was not subtle.
The midrange bloomed, becoming more "tube" sounding, ie more in the vein of a 300b but with bass.
The imaging stayed very nice with a deep soundstage.
I'd be tempted to build a set as I have a few GE211's left over from the Jolidas.
Edwin is debating offering an amp building class at the Randall museum and these amps would be a better fit for most applications as most people don't have speakers that will be happy for the output of a 300b set.
Edwin popped the covers open and reported that outside of the electraprint iron and chokes there were no boutique parts to speak of so perhaps there is more available to be had with DIY tweaking.
I'll download the pictures tommorrow. Be happy to try and answer any specific questions, I'll also forward this thread to Mr Elliano perhaps he'll chime in.

[Berndt]

[Berndt]

My current amp is a hafler dh-200 that has all of the musical design mods.

http://www.musicaldesign.com/mc_amp_mods.htm


This amp is pretty nice sounding. The EP 211's had better bass, bigger (taller, deeper)soundstage.
These little cookies do run warm though.
The hafler has more high frequency extension. Blows your mind when a tube amp has more bass grunt.
The hafler will play louder.
I could hear the amp rolling off at higher volumes when playing Slayer, double kick drums are one of my acid tests.
The Audio Kinesis speakers are a great match for many amps, love the 92db efficiency.
The 211 amps have a 6ohm opt so perhaps the opt could be optimized for the Jazz Modules?

[Berndt]

just saw this thread has 211 views

[lonewolfny42]

just saw this thread has 211 views

Now it's up to 232.....

Thanks for the photo's and info Bill ....

[nikhilji]

Bill, Thanks for the opportunity to have us listen to your system with the 211s.

Looking at the 211s, anyone familiar with the traditional high-power SET designs would wonder where the driver tubes are. But then this 211 design isn't the typical design but rather uses the TDA2030 chip to drive the 211s. And I guess, this aspect of the design definitely changes the flavor of this high-power SET design. (Pardon my ignorance, I wasn't aware of "Class A2" until I read this thread) I agree with Bill - the 211s deliver the soundstage and natural presentation while still delivering the grunt power for the low end. But the 211s may not meet the expectations of the hard-core single-ended fans. At 40W of tube power, these amps could easily drive a wide variety of speakers even with < 90db efficiency. I would be curious to see/hear how these amp match up with electrostatics or line-arrays.

Anyway for those who missed listening to the 211s, there will be an opportunity to listen to these amps at the Burning Amp festival :

http://home.comcast.net/~burningamp/Burnigamp2009/BurningAmp/index.html

as well as at a shootout at the Randall Museum, San Francisco on 10/24

I guess we will hear a lot more about these amps in days to come as and when people have an opportunity to listen to them in different systems. For how, the new kid on the block is definitely off to a promising start.

And lastly, I cannot help myself but mention Bill's Turntable project that was the primary source of the system (that has been talked about in the thread below and in pictures above):

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=70532.0

Truly a product of passion, perseverance and application. I'm inspired, Bill !!

nikhil