[Rasta]

Greetings,

Just curious if anyone is producing such a beast or experimented with one?

I know RWA is making a battery supplied amp with great success, but I'm curious if a tube rectified power supply might produce similar qualities without the battery fuss?

[topround]

Tube power suppply might become an issue as time wears out the tube(s), but how about a tube input for a class d amp, a tube hybrid digi amp, might be a good idea!

[Zero]

While this is not directly related to the original question; I've wanted to see a non ultra budget -  high quality class D amp use a tube output stage. When done right, I think the result could be really special.. 

[topround]

I think it is just a matter of time when we see these tube class d hybrids hit the market.
And one day class d will be better than tubes and solid state.
Imagine, no fuss high quality sound at a good price.
Maybe one day

[Rasta]

I guess the more interesting issue is that there is quite a fertile ground for tube/class D hybrids.  Whether its tubes in the power supply, input stage or output stage.

Where are the visionaries?   

[Norman Tracy]

Where are the visionaries?

Here:
http://www.davidberning.com
http://www.davidberning.com/microzotl.htm

And here:
http://www.meta-gizmo.com/Tri/aliens.html

[Rasta]

Visionary (Wiki):
"By extension, visionary came to mean also a person with a clear, distinctive and specific (in some details) vision of the future, usually connected with advances in technology or political arrangements."

I'm not sure I would call a $30,000 amp a "vision of the future", unless, of course, the dollar continues to devaluate at its current rate.   

[aerius]

It doesn't make sense IMO.  The problem with tube rectifiers is limited current, unless you go with something like mercury vapour rectifiers they'll put out a few hundred milliamps at most.  At transistor voltages of a few dozen volts, that works out to a couple watts or so.

[Rasta]

Thanks for the explanation.

Clearly, I'm not an electrical engineer, but apparently, what works well for tube amps doesn't necessarily work well for transistor based amps.

It just seems like there could be some interesting power supply designs that might out perform batteries?

[DaveC113]

A well built ac power supply should be better than a battery... that said I'm not willing to pay the price for good ac power supplies, and will buy gear like RWA or others that can run on batteries. For me its a question of budget, my Optima w/ cap bank is powering a Trends T-amp, and can also power a DAC and Squeezebox when I can afford to change sources, the new RWA battery-powered pre will include a nos tube dac.

Dave   

[HumanMedia]

Or maybe a better combination of technologies, like a tube preamp with a tube rectified power supply connected by balanced XLRs into a good Class D poweramp monoblocks?


I would bet that running the new Modwright LS36.5 tube rect linestage into the new Channel Islands D-500s would fit this bill and sound phenomenal.