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Albarry monoblocks

Oh and to answer the OP's main question most valve pre's will be less than ideal into 5K1 input impedance of the Albarry.... or wonderful depending on how you look at it... they will have more distortion than normal but some like that sort of thing. Many will also be bass light due to too small an output coupling cap though.
 
Only ever heard a friends pair of m408 ll and I thought they sounded superb, and very similar but not quite as good as the NVA amps I was using at that time, which I think was an original bolt up P50/A60.

Both designs use Darlington outputs fwiw.
 
Albarry amps were designed to be left on all the time, so they work better with pre amps that you can either leave on or have zero noise on startup.
 
Some amps are certainly designed/marketed to be left powered up 24/7, though whether this is ‘a good idea’ or ‘cynical planned obsolescence/landfill culture’ is very much up for debate!

PS Yes, I turn everything off when not in use.
 
Marketed yes.... I reckon it's some ploy to make people believe their amp is "such a thoroughbred it can't be allowed to get cold" or some such! There is no design technique or topology that is in any way intended to be left switched on or would suffer any negative by being switched off (some early valved computers about the only exception I can think of. Edit: and valved undersea repeater amplifiers for telephone system... there are possibly apocryphal accounts of some being switched on for 50 years without a fault!). It just keeps the likes of myself, Rubycon, Nichicon etc and JCB drivers at landfill sites in work and shareholders in electricity companies happy!
 
Beware. The output protection is no faster than normal and it is there to protect the amplifier not the speakers.
The dodgy Darlingtons used (most amps use Darlingtons but usually not the iffy pre packaged ones used in these) can go short and if this happens it can and will destroy the woofers of the speaker which that monoblock is connected to. I know:mad::rolleyes:
 
I've received a message from Simon (SJS) suggesting that the Albarry amplifiers aren't a good match for the reasons Arkless mentioned earlier.
Thanks for all the helpful input folks but my search for new amplification will continue in a different direction.... which direction, I don't know
 
I can third what Graham and Jez have said about the Albarrys impedance matching. When I had a pair of the monoblocks I had real problems finding a preamp to match them. When I asked a well known designer of excellent valve pre-amps he said that the Albarry's had a 'ludicrously low input impedance' and advised against it.

I never did find the right preamp so sold them (sadly, as I could hear great potential). Oddly they did work quite well with a cheap Tisbury passive. I would think a good passive could be spectacular with them.

Perhaps Graham or Jez might be able to speculate on why passives might work well with this kind of design, and what you need to look for in the specs of a passive preamp that would suggest it can cope with the 5KOhm input impedance?
 
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I own a pair of M608s and the AP11 pre
When at a show( Whittlbury I think ? ) I bumped into Neil Burnett ( Mr Albarry RIP ) and asked if I could send them in for servicing , The reply was " A slight laugh followed by , My equipment is built to be listened to , Not serviced , Just use them ) I like that approach
Years lated they still work great and sound mighty fine together , After all they were designed to be used together , Always wanted to try the battery powered phono stage , Was it the Albarry MCA11 ?
 
Elephantears said:
I can third what Graham and Jez have said about the Albarrys impedance matching. When I had a pair of the monoblocks I had real problems finding a preamp to match them. When I asked a well known designer of excellent valve pre-amps he said that the Albarry's had a 'ludicrously low input impedance' and advised against it.

I never did find the right preamp so sold them (sadly, as I could hear great potential). Oddly they did work quite well with a cheap Tisbury passive. I would think a good passive could be spectacular with them.

Perhaps Graham or Jez might be able to speculate on why passives might work well with this kind of design, and what you need to look for in the specs of a passive preamp that would suggest it can cope with the 5KOhm input impedance?
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A passive would be fine yes. 10K or 20K. It doesn't really matter here that "impedances are way out" as it's passive...
Sources would need to be happy driving the passive though so no valve phono stages or valve output stage CD players etc. With a 10K passive at full volume the total input impedance would now be reduced to about 3.4K (ie what the source sees) but at normal volumes it would be more like 8K ish. Most SS sources will be fine with this.

Valve pre's can certainly be designed to drive such low (ish) input impedances but as most power amps are say 33K and up there is not much impetus to do so. With typical 100K+ input impedance of a valve power amp (and many SS ones) many valve pre amp topologies are usable which would not be suitable for say a 5K load. If we were to say that a valve pre must be able to drive down to 2K and be able to drive it to 5V RMS without increasing distortion then yeah it's perfectly doable but this requirement would completely define the design of the pre amp.

Driving a SS amp from a valve pre is a wide continuum generally and not as clear cut as many seem to think.
A common issue is that output capacitors in the valve pre need to be made much larger in order to maintain bass response and "slam" etc. When people say there was a lack of dynamics, weight, slam etc and it's due to a "bad impedance match" it will often be nothing more than this and someone like myself can fit bigger output caps for those not happy to do it themselves. Beyond the cases which are basically a no-no, like many valve pres with the 5K1 of the Albarry's, the main thing which will happen is increased 2nd harmonic distortion, exactly the type reputed to give "valve sound" in the first place! However (and this is very much a continuum!), in most cases a power amp will need only 1V or so for full output and at typical listening levels you may well only be driving 0.05 to 0.1V into your power amp and under such conditions the rise in distortion due to non optimum impedance will very likely only be from say 0.02% under "perfect" conditions to say 0.03%.
 
Every now and then you hear a system that just lives in the memory. In my 40 plus years in the industry I have heard only a few that really managed to reach that level. One such system I heard in 1979/80 included the original Albarry 408s. The rest was Trio LO-7D, Dynavector Ruby/Diamond? Karat? and active Alison 1s. Don't remember the preamp. I was in retail a few years later stocking the Albarry and it always made a system work smoothly and musically. Really I class it as the best of solid state. Right up at the top, it maybe was not that exciting, but it was so musical and real sounding. Great amplifier. Look good too.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
Marketed yes.... I reckon it's some ploy to make people believe their amp is "such a thoroughbred it can't be allowed to get cold" or some such!
Click to expand...
It's all part of the mythology and the maintenance of the "hifi is magic" tale that enables them to charge heavily for routine consumer electronics and all that that entails.
 
stevec67 said:
It's all part of the mythology and the maintenance of the "hifi is magic" tale that enables them to charge heavily for routine consumer electronics and all that that entails.
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Eh? Are you talking about a defunct company who's designer died several years ago? Or something else?
 
awkwardbydesign said:
Eh? Are you talking about a defunct company who's designer died several years ago? Or something else?
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This bit:
Arkless Electronics said:
No amplifier is designed to be left on all the time and it is always a bad idea.
and
Marketed yes.... I reckon it's some ploy to make people believe their amp is "such a thoroughbred it can't be allowed to get cold" or some such!
Click to expand...
stevec67 said:
It's all part of the mythology and the maintenance of the "hifi is magic" tale that enables them to charge heavily for routine consumer electronics and all that that entails.
Click to expand...
There you go. I'm talking about the whole industry as propped up by the magazines funded by their advertising.
 
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