TAS review Berning 211/845 amplifier

FrantzM · Oct 7, 2016

Hi

I am pleased to see David Berning getting the recognition he deserved. One of the true visionary and most gifted audio designers around. Doesn't follow the crowds. Innovative different and great sounding circuit topologies.

YashN · Oct 7, 2016

He's a genius.

I can’t help but speculate that the extremely simple signal path of a triode amplifier, coupled with the absence of the output transformer, is the technical foundation for the 211/845’s sense of hearing music directly rather than listening through electronics. No doubt the 211/845’s other design features and implementation are allowing this topology to reach its zenith.

Precisely what we must strive for, simplicity of circuitry rather than chain a lot of electronics where grounding, power and EMI/RFI/noise profile come into great play.

Now, if you understand that principle, you start to wonder why we allow boxed electronics in our speakers (Crossovers) when ideally the amplifier should connect straight to the driver and we should have the opportunity of choosing our crossover method and of placing it before the amp.

This is the kind of amplifier where you will want to give it the best mid-range reproduction speakers you can.

YashN · Oct 7, 2016

Harley's review was very well done I thought.

Audiocrack · Oct 7, 2016

Mike Lavigne said:
no.....the beauty is real and right. I mean that they isolate images in a way that does not happen in live music. you 'see' performers in front of you as if they are here in your room better than the darts. however; the whole ambience of the event is not recreated like the darts. so 'they are here' but you are not at the event. I view this as an artifact of tube amplification.....and sexy and fun to hear.....but not as real or preferred by me to being at the actual event......which requires more command over the speaker.....and which the darts do in spade

I wish I was a more gifted writer and could relate my perceptions better.....trying to interpret my memories.... which are quite vivid and clear. the Berning did make a strong impression.

and this is besides the issue of much more dynamic ease and authority with the darts. which again takes you more down the 'suspension of disbelief' pathway. my preference.

the darts give you all the information and are more out of the way of the music, the Berning imprints more of it's own signature on the presentation. tonality and FR is pretty neutral and even with the Bernings.

Thanks Mike. I suppose we disagree about tube amps (not) being able to 'transport' us to the musical event but I appreciate your explanation.

Audiocrack · Oct 7, 2016

vindixon said:
I have used Berning amps (and Pré amps) for almost 20 years now moving from an EA230 through ZH270 to QuadratureZ. I have never had reliability issues with any of his products. Tube life is 10-20 000 hours. David is a pleasure to work with, he modified one of my ZH 270's for Europe voltage and then back again. He services every product that he has built. I originally bought the EA 230 as it was a great match for the Quad 63's I had then. I've stayed with his amps through Quad 998 and currently Quad 2905 and Sonus Faber Guarneri Homage & Stradivari. His amps have auto bias and the current models can be used with any voltage.

Thanks. I was (indeed) not referring to Berning amps because I have never heard one. However I experienced quite a few OTL amp failures in various systems in the Netherlands, sometimes with really nasty consequences. That was the reason for my question regarding the reliability of the Berning amps.

YashN · Oct 7, 2016

Mike Lavigne said:
so 'they are here'

Means it can summon dead people in your room.

Think about it.

bonzo75 · Oct 7, 2016

vindixon said:
I have used Berning amps (and Pré amps) for almost 20 years now moving from an EA230 through ZH270 to QuadratureZ. I have never had reliability issues with any of his products. Tube life is 10-20 000 hours. David is a pleasure to work with, he modified one of my ZH 270's for Europe voltage and then back again. He services every product that he has built. I originally bought the EA 230 as it was a great match for the Quad 63's I had then. I've stayed with his amps through Quad 998 and currently Quad 2905 and Sonus Faber Guarneri Homage & Stradivari. His amps have auto bias and the current models can be used with any voltage.

Which preamps have you compared it to?

Mike Lavigne · Oct 7, 2016

Audiocrack said:
Thanks Mike. I suppose we disagree about tube amps (not) being able to 'transport' us to the musical event but I appreciate your explanation.

more the preference for the style in which they do it and personal priorities. I certainly appreciate the ultra 3D of the best tube amps, but also the more top to bottom rendering of uber solid state.

there is room for both at the top of the heap.

at some point I will have a set of tube amps to be able to shift to answer the siren call of that perspective. my investment in the other way has limited my choice for that.

Audiocrack · Oct 7, 2016

Mike Lavigne said:
more the preference for the style in which they do it and personal priorities. I certainly appreciate the ultra 3D of the best tube amps, but also the more top to bottom rendering of uber solid state.

there is room for both at the top of the heap.

at some point I will have a set of tube amps to be able to shift to answer the siren call of that perspective. my investment in the other way has limited my choice for that.

Having 'the best' of both (i.e. solid state and tube) worlds, that is audio nirvana. Do I understand you correctly you are aiming at top solid state and tube amplification to combine with one set of loudspeakers?

bonzo75 · Oct 7, 2016

Audiocrack said:
Having 'the best' of both (i.e. solid state and tube) worlds, that is audio nirvana. Do I understand you correctly you are aiming at top solid state and tube amplification with one set of loudsprakers?

I am. Not top, but if I get the room for apogees, it will be ayon orthos xs kt 150 and Luxman m900 bridged. Funds permitting keep both, else sell one.

For horns, valves.

Ideally one needs two of everything. Two pairs of speakers, two styles of amps, multiple TTs

microstrip · Oct 7, 2016

YashN said:
(...) Precisely what we must strive for, simplicity of circuitry rather than chain a lot of electronics where grounding, power and EMI/RFI/noise profile come into great play.

Now, if you understand that principle, you start to wonder why we allow boxed electronics in our speakers (Crossovers) when ideally the amplifier should connect straight to the driver and we should have the opportunity of choosing our crossover method and of placing it before the amp.

This is the kind of amplifier where you will want to give it the best mid-range reproduction speakers you can.

The Berning ZOTL amplifiers are not simple circuits and the signal path is not simple! They are very complex, using RF conversion transformers to avoid the need for a large output transformer. It is why some people object to call them OTLs. Please see the patent that generically describes the circuit https://www.google.com/patents/US5612646.

And yes, they were designed by a genius ...

Audiocrack · Oct 7, 2016

bonzo75 said:
I am. Not top, but if I get the room for apogees, it will be ayon orthos xs kt 150 and Luxman m900 bridged. Funds permitting keep both, else sell one.

For horns, valves.

Ideally one needs two of everything. Two pairs of speakers, two styles of amps, multiple TTs

Yes, I agree. I have more or less tried to achieve this with two (very) different loudspeakers, turntables, cartridges and digital devices. However, I am employing the same tube preamp in both systems and more or less the same poweramps, that is the Kondo Gakuoh in push pull version and the Kondo Gakuoh in single ended version. This amplification choice was (and still is) motivated by the fact that I have not yet heard a preamp/poweramp combination that suits me better. But of course I have not heard an awful lot of amps, including the Berning 211/845 amps that we are talking about in this thread.

microstrip · Oct 7, 2016

Audiocrack said:
Thanks. I was (indeed) not referring to Berning amps because I have never heard one. However I experienced quite a few OTL amp failures in various systems in the Netherlands, sometimes with really nasty consequences. That was the reason for my question regarding the reliability of the Berning amps.

The Berning amps are not "true" OTLs - they do not suffer from the characteristic catastrophic behavior of most (not all OTLs). But unfortunately some OTL designers forget to include some protection for faulty tubes in their amplifiers, aiming only at signal "purity", and seem to ignore that some tubes can short in the end of their life time or under fault conditions. One reason I appreciate Atma-sphere OTLs is that are intrinsically safe, the output power triodes have fuses incorporated in them!

Audiocrack · Oct 7, 2016

microstrip said:
The Berning ZOTL amplifiers are not simple circuits and the signal path is not simple! They are very complex, using RF conversion transformers to avoid the need for a large output transformer. It is why some people object to call them OTLs. Please see the patent that generically describes the circuit https://www.google.com/patents/US5612646.

And yes, they were designed by a genius ...

This is intriguing!

bonzo75 · Oct 7, 2016

Audiocrack said:
Yes, I agree. I have more or less tried to achieve this with two (very) different loudspeakers, turntables, cartridges and digital devices. However, I am employing the same tube preamp in both systems and more or less the same poweramps, that is the Kondo Gakuoh in push pull version and the Kondo Gakuoh in single ended version. This amplification choice was (and still is) motivated by the fact that I have not yet heard a preamp/poweramp combination that suits me better. But of course I have not heard an awful lot of amps, including the Berning 211/845 amps that we are talking about in this thread.

I think ideally budgets should be staggered across differing systems than trying to optimize one system. But part of the hobby is to get carried away, keep tweaking to take out that one more thing, and be ideological about the fact that one will have one system that will do everything. I had on another forum in my early days started a Two Racks thread, one valve, one SS...And got laughed off.

Rhapsody has interesting gear and speakers he can swap around easily in the same room.

Audiocrack · Oct 7, 2016

microstrip said:
The Berning amps are not "true" OTLs - they do not suffer from the characteristic catastrophic behavior of most (not all OTLs). But unfortunately some OTL designers forget to include some protection for faulty tubes in their amplifiers, aiming only at signal "purity", and seem to ignore that some tubes can short in the end of their life time or under fault conditions. One reason I appreciate Atma-sphere OTLs is that are intrinsically safe, the output power triodes have fuses incorporated in them!

Thanks Micro. Have you ever heard Berning amps under more or less controlled circumstances? If so, how do they compare in your view to the Atma-Sphere OTL amps?

bonzo75 · Oct 7, 2016

Audiocrack said:
Thanks Micro. Have you ever heard Berning amps under more or less controlled circumstances? If so, how do they compare in your view to the Atma-Sphere OTL amps?

I have heard them twice on focal utopia standamounts but don't think they were the right fit for that as it needs more power. The guys played jazz and pop pretty soft at low volumes. One guy bought the utopia just so that he could get the amps with them (selling as a package deal) and then sold off the utopias..He wanted them on horns but never got round to it I think

microstrip · Oct 7, 2016

Audiocrack said:
Thanks Micro. Have you ever heard Berning amps under more or less controlled circumstances? If so, how do they compare in your view to the Atma-Sphere OTL amps?

Unfortunately no. Two far audio friends who have access to the best recommended them to me as being something exceptional, but as they are not distributed in Europe and seem to be very complex to service in case of failure, I resisted to get them. As far as I could know they are not CE certified, something that does not simplify traveling across the Atlantic.

bonzo75 · Oct 7, 2016

microstrip said:
Unfortunately no. Two far audio friends who have access to the best recommended them to me as being something exceptional, but as they are not distributed in Europe and seem to be very complex to service in case of failure I resisted to get one. As far as I could know they are not CE certified, something that does not simplify traveling across the Atlantic.

You can hear them one hour from London

microstrip · Oct 7, 2016

bonzo75 said:
You can hear them one hour from London

You are lucky people - as far as I know UK customs are very flexible with the CE electrical certification - they have always been training for the BREXIT ...

TAS review Berning 211/845 amplifier

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