[Amps] Price per Watt Conversation

[Leigh Turner]

I agree Jay and Joe; tube amps and replacement tubes will be around for
quite a while to come; longer than most of us old geezers on this amps
forum! They produce excellent bang for buck and operational robustness.

Solid-state QRO HF linear amps can be made to work very nicely particularly
when conservatively driven and backed-off paralleled modules operating well
clear of their 1 dB power compression points are combined and harmonic
terminating diplexer LPF's are used to yield stable performance and good IMD
specs. And this is achievable without resorting to esoteric pre-distortion
and linearity correction techniques.

I remain an ardent fan and user of both amplifier types...the best SS amps
are homebrew as the current batch of commercial ones have too many
short-cuts in their design; the principal Achilles heel is their thermal
aspects and device SOE under adverse load VSWR conditions.

Leigh
VK5KLT

-----Original Message-----
From: Amps [mailto:amps-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Joe Subich,
W4TV
Sent: Saturday, 22 April 2017 7:09 AM
To: amps at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [Amps] Price per Watt Conversation



On 4/21/2017 4:53 PM, Jay Terleski wrote:

> The OM amp has huge overhead so at 1500W so your not stressing it
> like SS amp rated for 1500W. So IMD is good, Less noise, more watts,
> good price per dollar. readily available tube still in production.

Several of the newer LDMOS designs are using *two* active devices
rated at 1500W each.  They are not nearly as stressed as older
devices run into saturation and should provide significantly better
IMD than marginal designs like the Expert 1.3K.

> Tubes amps are going to be around for awhile. Is that OK?

I appreciate tubes but I don't know that I would bet on the long
term availability or their quality/reliability of tubes from BY.
Quality/reliability is responsible for the demise of tubes from
the broadcast world.

73,

    ... Joe, W4TV


On 4/21/2017 4:53 PM, Jay Terleski wrote:

> OM-2000+   2,000 Watts   $3.379.00
>
> At the US legal limit, it's $2.25/Watt. It's also a tube amp
> while you show/compare it against the list of solid state amps.
>
> Cathy, the PW-1 is a 1000W amplifier per Icom's own Instruction
> Manual.  You list it as 1500W.
>
> 73,
>
>     ... Joe, W4TV
>
>
> Gee wiz Joe.  I was just copying some of Cathy's comments to stay within
> the framework of the thread.  I think her comparisons are on point.  The
> tube amp is not obsolete at all.
>
> The OM amp has huge overhead so at 1500W so your not stressing it like SS
> amp rated for 1500W. So IMD is good, Less noise, more watts, good price 
> per dollar. readily available tube still in production.  Tubes amps are 
> going to be around for awhile.  Is that OK?
>
> Jay, WX0B
>
> Jay Terleski
> Array Solutions
> 214 954 7140
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