Tube Research Labs Platinum Golden Triode Reference 800 Mono Amplifiers

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Roysen

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Hi all.

Having ordered these amplifiers four years ago, it seems they now finally are about to arrive shortly. The original design is twenty years old and probably best known from being used by Winston Ma of First Impression Music.

My pair will be the first pair (and maybe the only pair) with a re-designed circuitry and newer and better parts and components. A few owners of TRL amplifiers have been able to upgrade their amps with some of what has been invented for my pair. Some of the features are new designed transformers able to drive loads below 1 Ohm (the ones previously used were some of the best too with 24 interleaved windings. The new transformers will have similar windings), Duelund CAST copper coupling capacitors (the old design used Mundorf Supreme), teflon tube sockets, KT-120 tubes - 10 pairs in paralell in the amplifier and in the external power supply for each channel for a total of 96 tubes in all four cabinets (KT99 was used in the old design), a new power supply circuit design, the use of Phillip Hauge power connectors (similar to those used by Boulder) and PowerCon umbillical connectors, new resistors and a new visual design. I have also ordered a set of the Psvane KT-88T tubes to be able to experiment with. The amps will most likely be called 20th Anniversary Edition. They produce 800W Class A Triode or 1600W Class A Tetrode. Zero negative feedback.

These are the old design: http://www.tuberesearchlabs.com/products/gt800.htm

A translated Japanese review of the old design: http://www.tuberesearchlabs.com/reviews/serious_manufacturing.htm

The amplifiers will be installed by designer Paul Weitzel in my home. While he is here he will also upgrade my Tube Research Labs Platinum Golden Triode Reference Preamplifier (which I bought used from Winston Ma) with the same new power supply circuitry as introduced in the amplifiers and new Duelund CAST copper coupling capacitors.

I am really looking forward to this. If anyone with experience with TRL amplifiers would like to share their thoughts and experience with TRL products I would be most happy.

Thanks,
Roysen
 
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LL21

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Whoa...that is serious! Congrats! It draws 1800 watts from the wall when in pure Class A triode mode! How much power does it output into 8ohms?

Please post when you have them setup and running! I have only read about these...i believe there is a guy whose system is on Audiogon...Texas Heat, if i recall correctly. He runs the Apogee reference speaker i think.
 

Roysen

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The guy on Audiogon is my friend. He bought Winston Mas amplifiers. They have been upgraded with the new power supply circuitry. He will accompany Paul Weitzel to my home on installation. There are output terminals for 2, 4 and 8 Ohms. They all provide 800W Triode.

Thanks,
Roy
 
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LL21

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The guy on Audiogon is my friend. He bought Winston Mas amplifiers. They have been upgraded with the new power suppl circuitry. He will accompany Paul Weitzel to my home on installation. Threre are output terminals for 2, 4 and 8 Ohms. They all provide 800W Triode.

Thanks,
Roy

A small world indeed! Particularly amongst owners of TRL! That is a ton of power...
 

Steve Williams

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The guy on Audiogon is my friend. He bought Winston Mas amplifiers. They have been upgraded with the new power suppl circuitry. He will accompany Paul Weitzel to my home on installation. Threre are output terminals for 2, 4 and 8 Ohms. They all provide 800W Triode.

Thanks,
Roy

His name is Ish. He is a professor of electrical engineering at the University. He has been to my home twice. I was at his home when Paul from TRL was setting those amps up. The number of tubes is mind boggling and I trust your room will be well ventilated because the heat is enormous
 

Roysen

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His name is Ish. He is a professor of electrical engineering at the University. He has been to my home twice. I was at his home when Paul from TRL was setting those amps up. The number of tubes is mind boggling and I trust your room will be well ventilated because the heat is enormous

Hi, Steve.

Yes, his name is Ish. I wasn't sure he wanted he is name out in the open though. He uses a nick on Audiogon. The amplifiers will be in a dedicated studio in our garden purpose built for audio playback and I plan to install a dedicated aircondition system. Any comments on the sound you experienced at in Ish system after the TRLs were installed?

Thanks,
Roysen
 

Steve Williams

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He is well known on Audiogon and has used his name many times there

A very kind and educated man to all things stereo

His room was truly incredible with those amps on the floor of his room.

I also got to meet Paul that day and enjoyed our few hours together.

Sound was darn good too
 

FrantzM

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BTW, I am amazed at your patience in waiting 4 years for the amp to be made

It helps to have three other world class systems along with countless uber-gear
 

Steve Williams

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I remember when I had my ARC Reference 600 Mk lll amp and how Dave Gordon tried to talk me out of them because of the heat produced. Listening in the summer was unbearable, so much so that I ended up putting a 3rd AC into my house with this one dedicated solely for my room.
 

mep

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Never mind the heat from the tubes. You wallet is going to get heated from the cost of maintaining that many tubes.
 

Roysen

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He is well known on Audiogon and has used his name many times there

A very kind and educated man to all things stereo

His room was truly incredible with those amps on the floor of his room.

I also got to meet Paul that day and enjoyed our few hours together.

Sound was darn good too

Thanks for that info, Steve.

I was not aware that he had used his real name. Yes, they do put out enough heat to take special measures to handle the heat. The system they will be playing in will be placed in a separate building built specifically for housing that system and another system. An airconditiong system will be installed. The Krell MRA (wich is also quite the heat producer) will also play in the same system.

Thanks,
Roysen
 
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Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
Thanks for that info, Steve.

I was not aware of that. Yes, they do put out enough heat to take special measures to handle that. The system where they will be playing will be placed in a separate building built specifically for housing that and another system. An Airconditiong system will be installed. The Krell MRA (wich is also quite the heat producer) will also play in the same system.

Thanks,
Roysen

Having lived through my ARC Ref 600's and also hearing Ish's system, I can tell you that mine didn't even compare heat wise to his
 

andromedaaudio

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Well roysen you never stop to amaze me , you dive real deep in this audio adventure , good luck .
Yes duelund cast caps do cost a lot of money , im now using the copperfoil version VSF as tweeter serial cap this is not the much more expensive cast, they are very good , possibly better than mundorf silver oil which i am also very familiar with as with supreme, i am not sure yet even after about seven years :p:D
Which speaker are you using them on ??

something more on cast caps , beautifull stuff , it tells me the designer of your amps is following the no holds barred aproach

http://www.duelundaudio.com/CAST_Capacitor.asp
 
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Roysen

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Well roysen you never stop to amaze me , you dive real deep in this audio adventure , good luck .
Yes duelund cast caps do cost a lot of money , im now using the copperfoil version as tweeter serial cap this is not the much more expensive cast, they are very good , possibly better than mundorf silver oil which i am also very familiar with as with supreme, i am not sure yet even after about seven years :p:D
Which speaker are you using them on ??

Hi,

These amplifiers will drive a not yet comercially available speaker from Tidal Audio which probably will be called T2. The speakers are two towers pr. side like the Tidals Audio current top model T1. The new speakers need to be tri-amplified, like the T1, with a dedicated active three-way crossover. My Krell MRA will drive the bass, the Tube Research Labs amplifiers will drive the mid-bass and a not yet comercially available reference battery-driven mono amplifier from Tidal Audio will drive the midrange and tweeter. The entire system has been described in the darTZeel NHB-458 thread in the darTZeel forum. This is what I called my tube based system. The main challenge with this system is to get these three totally different amplifiers to play as a coherent whole. The crossover has some funcionality which will hopefully help me acheive this.

Thanks,
Roysen
 
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andromedaaudio

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:confused::DAmazing ....

But i suggest you try the TRL also for the bass section , plenty of power any way.
after having had very good SS amps like krell evo and boulder i can say that very good tube amps , have a way with natural bass that ss cant match , exept for electronic music and "maybe " percussion i would say
 

cjfrbw

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Ish had the TRL's tied up to a pair of Apogee Full Ranges that used a midrange ribbon from Centaurus Major speakers.

He came by several years ago to hear my system when I first got the Analysis Epsilon speakers. Haven't been to the Apogee forums for a while, don't know if Ish changed his system, he had several, a couple of Apogee systems and a couple of non-Apogee systems.
 

Roysen

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:confused::DAmazing ....

But i suggest you try the TRL also for the bass section , plenty of power any way.
after having had very good SS amps like krell evo and boulder i can say that very good tube amps , have a way with natural bass that ss cant match , exept for electronic music and "maybe " percussion i would say

Bass and midbass needs to be two different amplifiers. Paul Weitzel of Tube Research Labs and I have also loosely discussed another amplifier project. That would be a 300B based SE amplifier with 15 or 20 tubes connected in parallel to achieve 120W - 150W.

From what I understand Ish is now using one pair of the TRL 800s and one pair of the TRL 400s (144 tubes total) to bi-amplify a pair of Apogee Scintilla.

Thanks,
Roysen
 
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