Darnestown, MD, June, 2005, Milbert Amplifiers introduces its BaM-235ab car tube amp, the evolutionary third model in its 20-year-old line of automotive vacuum tube amplifiers, which offers several improvements including patent-pending "auto-plasma-bias" ™ circuitry which Milbert claims adapts to music levels and maintains proper bias at all times while also automatically compensating for tube aging and obviating any need for using matched tubes or manual tube bias adjustments.
According to Milbert, other improvements in the BaM-235ab include radio-frequency layout and design techniques, additional energy storage, adjustable feedback, adjustable grounding, and "above-mil-spec" circuitboard material that is thicker, able to sustain higher temperatures and carry more current than standard "glass-epoxy." Christopher Milbert explains, "it's like a car made out of better metal, and it improves everything."
"Our BaM car tube amps have always been impervious to microphonic noise from vibration," continues Mr. Milbert, "and they also have an unequalled track record of ten-year-plus tube lifetimes --practically unheard-of in home or studio, and definitely unique in the harsh car enviroment. With a high-end home audio pedigree and numerous strong reviews and industry awards, the sound quality of our amps approaches legendary. Automatic Plasma Bias, adjustable feedback, adjustable grounding, improved layout and more energy storage --all of which provide real and audible benefit-- result from our ongoing honing and improvement of our classic tube car amp, now available in its third and newest incarnation, the BaM-235ab."
Based largely upon its predecessors yet recently reviewed as "most certainly the Holy Grail of auto sound," the 35-watt-per-channel stereo BaM-235ab uses ten vacuum tubes, class-A input stages, an 100% all-tube audio signal path, and patented designs to eliminate microphonic noise from vibration and maximize sound quality.
Milbert Amplifiers has been building vacuum tube car audio equipment just outside of Washington, DC since 1986, with its single model car tube amp (in three consecutive versions) in continuous production for nearly twenty years. The BaM-235ab retails for US$2,495 and is available directly from Milbert's website or from dealers worldwide.
Press pictures and details available at milbert.com/BaM-235ab
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Anonymous
Posted on
$2400 for a 35x2 watt amp thats pricey as H E double hockey stick.
Yeah, I personally don't feel there is any way to justify that super steep price tag. 35 watts? Thats almost enough to power a couple of 6.5 inch speakers. And all this stuff about tube amps having the absolute best SQ possible, the difference is probably inaudible when compared to a higher end solid state amp anyway.
tube amp was designed for super quiet envirnoment (studio) with in wall sound installation (not car). It's not really super loud but it can be loud enough to pop your ear drum. Isaac W. if you think it's inaudible when compared with high-end solid state amp, that's wrong..... have you ever listen to any Home High-end Tube Amp before ??? 100w tube amp can over power 400-500w amp easily. (LAMM, KRronzilla, CAT, CARY, AudioResearch)
"And all this stuff about tube amps having the absolute best SQ possible, the difference is probably inaudible when compared to a higher end solid state amp anyway."
They don't. The fact that there are two sides of the fence constantly firing back and forth at each other, neither with a surefire conclusion, already proves that neither design has a substantial audible benefit over the other. Usually those that focus so much time arguing for tube amps are old geezers that listened to Amos and Andy on their mommy's RCA Victor in the good ol days, and use the poorly designed solid state amps of the 60s as their basis of an argument. At the time, transistor amplifiers really did suck and if you heard a SS amp from that era, you experienced the worst that solid state can be. Times have changed. On the other side of the fence, engineers and technicians argue for solid state because SS amplifiers have superior specifications, not to the ears, but on a test bench. On a test bench, a well designed SS amp will outperform a well designed tube amp by a great deal in every way meaningful. That is why we converted to solid state so quickly and ditched the tube, it is also why tube guys have such a difficult time arguing since their arguments are based on psychoacoustics and solid state guys use cold, hard data. Doesn't make either one right or wrong, it just changes the arguments presented and makes it difficult to level with one another. Any double blind test that keeps either amp from overload will conclude that noone can tell an audible difference. Look into the Richard Clark challenge, noone has won it yet.
Tubes pride themselves on 2nd order distortion. While the distortion is higher on a tube amplifier, 2nd order distortion (even order) is closer to the original signal, which is why tubes are said to produce a "warmer" or "fuller" sound to it. Transistors tend to produce more 3rd order distortion (odd order), but that level of distortion is much lower than that of a tube amplifier. Tubes handle clipping better than solid state amplifiers and overload easier. That is the main reason why they are the amplifier of choice for heavy guitar and other music with lots of distortion. Transistors retain low distortion up until the verge of clipping, then they clip HARD. The difference between a tube and transistor amplifier will only be noticed with excessive distortion (clipping), so really you're not doing an ideal comparison from the get-go.
My opinion? Recording studios use solid state equipment, from the microphone, to the preamps, processors, and in the end, the CD you have popped in at the moment. The head unit in your car is solid state, equalizers are solid state. If solid state equipment was inferior to tube equipment, the damage will have already been done a long time before it reaches the amplifier that powers your speakers. Any 3rd order distortion introduced by the the solid state equipment that was used to record the material (and that used to produce the recorded material), will already be in the chain and will be produced by your amplifier regardless of what type it is. I feel that at that point the only benefit of a tube amplifier is to lessen the negative effects of what is basically a user error for driving his/her amplifier into overload. More important than the choice of amp is the person that puts it into use. Choosing the right equipment for the job will go a lot further than bickering about psychoacoustics. Both have their pros and cons, it's the application that determines what should be used where. I'd choose a tube amp for certain things, mainly speakers with swinging impedance loads or a guitar, or if I were listening to vinyls (which many of them were recorded with tube equipment), but for digital formats, I don't see the point in one.