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Just wondering if anyone has a Tulip amp that has been modded, and what the mods were. Also, what kind of output tranny's are used in this amp, would a ouput tranny upgrade be worth the cost? Regards, Ron
They wind their own trannies. I almost bought one and did some checking.
Thanks for the info, have you heard if the quaility of the handwound tranny's is very good or not. I plan to run a 3 way Edgarhorn system with this and think I should be able to improve on this amp. Any other info you can share with me would be appreciated. Thanks, Ron
Well Ron I personally have not heard the amp and it's hard to make recommendations w/o hearing. The Audio club here had a guy who liked it but he only heard it stock. Remmember that the Tulip is input transformer coupled. I guess to increase gain since they put out 3.5 watts from just a driver stage and the output stage. From the little that I know input trans must have a very high step-up ratio to load a single tube; however that requires high turns ratio which could compromise high end response. The mods I have heard of include: VH Audio V-cat Teflon coupling Caps Riken Carbon Film grid-stopper resistors Sonicap Power Supply filter cap by-passes IXYS Ultra-fast soft recovery diodes in the power supply. This should help I hope; the unit is supposed to sound real sweet with these mods.J.R.
Thanks for the info. I am running EH 2A3 Gold drid 2A3's(RCA 2A3's for serious listening), Sylvania 12Ax7A's(green label), and a Mullard 5AR4 rectifier. I tried a Blue Circle 21.1 preamp to go with it, but the sound was not very good at all. The same preamp with my MC-240 was okay. So I am wondering about useful preamps with this amp. I had a friend come over with a Bottlehead Foreplay which played very nice. Just hard to match up a preamp with, could that be transformer coupled problem? I have had this for approx a year, the sound is good once you roll some "old stock" tubes to replace the chinese tubes which tend to be forward and lack the subtle details that vintage tubes have. I know a friend with a S45 Moth amp that shows the difference in quality though. Thanks, Ron
Absolutely; the source impedance will have an effect on the load. I have only a rudimentary understanding of this subject. The amp needs a particular load impedance so that the source is better controlled by the electrical damping provided by the load. Like a speaker. Flatter response/ cleaner output, and better resonance control will all be affected by impedance matching of source and load. Some use a look-up factor of 200 or more as a guide. Hopefully some of the brains will see this post and chime in, Eric and Wayne. Input impedance of the Tulip is 100k so you would probably want 500ohm output impedance on your pre-amp. My AES is 560ohm output impedance. If you were close by I would run it by, but if not try and borrow one. It's a nice sounding unit and it would probably work for you. That Tulip I believe can run 45's as is; no? You know as an aside; there will always be something better. Like the Moth; since it sells for 4times the price of the Tulip, it better be. Hope this helps; J.R.
Funny thing about the Blue Circle preamp is the 130 ohm output impedance, you would think it could drive anything. Thanks, Ron
So you have a good impedance match; must be something else. Back EMF? Maybe they just don't get along.J.R.
I don't know how it will work, but I swapped for some $$$ and trade for Audible Illusions L1 preamp. Don't think it will be much different, but can sell off if I don't like it. So far, the Bottlehead Foreplay preamp plays well with it, Bill Epstein came down and we tried it, sounded wonderful. I will try the L1 soon, but busy schedule for next couple of days with domestic stuff I have to do, will report findings when I do. Cheers, Ron