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Review 1 of 2
Price Paid:
$0.00
from Audio Advisor Summary:
This amp is one of the best values around. With the right tube complement it can go shoulder to shoulder with far more expensive gear. After rolling numerous new production and NOS tubes, I settled in on running Russian Cryo-Valve EL-34s manufactured by SED. Vintage Mullards would be ideal, but four matched NOS Mullards would be very costly. For preamp tubes I use NOS RCA Cleartop 12AU7s from the 1960s. These are still relatively inexpensive. Since preamp tubes have far longer life than power tubes, this is the way to go in my view.
The amp has a surprising amount of headroom. It can drive 6 Ohm speakers, but they should be relatively efficient. The ASL seems to work best with bookshelf speakers. I have coupled it with Klipsch Hereseys sucessfully, but I find that it works best with my JBL L20Ts. These speakers are another great bargain and can be had for $200 on ebay. In the future I intend to replace the JBLs with some Harbeths of the same size. My larger JBL LSR6332 were absolutely inappropriate for the ASL tube amp.
Strengths:
The amp is clear and uncolored sound, particularly with tube upgrades. The original Chinese current production tubes do not do justice to the ASL.
Weaknesses:
The subwoofer line out is full range so it requires some form of crossover to avoid producing boomy bass. There is no phono section in the ASL, but I have coupled it with the Bellari red phono stage and a Bottlehead phono stage with great results.
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