I'll bet Ameritron makes and sells more amps than all the other
American manufacturers combined.
I got ceramic tube amp fever a couple of years ago and wanted a
Command HF-2500 real bad but I didn't get one and I'm glad now. I
finally came around to deciding the dual 3-500z amps are the way to
go. Here's why:
The Command and Titan III and other ceramic tube amps can put out 1.5
kw effortlessly but how much power do you need? With a pair of
3-500s and 100 w. drive you will never put out 2 or 2.5 kw but do you
want to? Besides being illegal in the U.S., for a noticable
difference in signal strength, you'd have to run around 5 kw at least
(which is crazy), assuming you are already putting out Centurion
power.
They can be driven with low exciter power but I like having an amp
that needs all of 100 w. for drive. No chance for overdrive and
dirty output. No chance of forgetting to cut the exciter back when
switching the amp on from standby.
3-500s are not the cheapest tubes out there but they aren't an arm and
a leg like some and you almost have to work at damaging them to do any
harm to them.
The grounded grid cathode driven triode design results in a real clean output.
I decided I would not consider any tetrode amp because of these reasons.
N.B. I might be willing to accept a 2 x 3cx800 amp if I wanted to
operate 100% duty cycle mode at reduced power.
73
rob / k5uj
_______________________________________________
TenTec mailing list
TenTec@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/tentec
|