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Amplifiers › PRE-POWER COMBI

BROTHERS GLIM(M)

With the HP 700 SE
preamp and the MRE 220
W designed a fairy tale tube also been used in his circuits from the
hen talking about tubes in high
mono blocks Octave has
very beginning. Not in the signal path,
fidelity, we occasionally consi-
der ourselves being in a fairy ta-
le. Along comes some Brother Lustig combi. But it’s not the but e.g. where operating voltages need
to be regulated, con¬trolled and stabi-
proclaiming that only the glowing glass magic work of a good fairy lized. After pentodes had been used in
bulbs can awake a sound system from – common sense and un- Octave power amps for decades (“Klei-
its sleeping beauty slumber. The scene ne Röhrenkunde/Little Tube Lore“, see
overgrown by a lot of legends someti- derstanding prevail. AUDIO 7/20, page 28) to deliver the
mes reminds the author of the household ■ By Lothar Brandt output power in push-pull mode, with
tale “The Little Old Man Made Young by the V 16 (5/18) and the Jubilee 300 B
Fire“ which the Brothers Grimm had he created amp gems with the 300 B
swiped from early-modern shoemaker, pertise down to the last winding of triode in single-ended mode. And in
meistersinger and lyric poet Hans Sachs: mains or output transformers, resting on the V 70 class-A integrated amplifier
Jesus rejuvenates, i.e. smartens up a an earthquake-proof mountain of experi- (11/20) he successfully integrated,
beggar by putting him into the fire at a ence and relying on an armada of mea- against all doctrines, the class-A mode
blacksmith’s workshop. The presump- surements. Other pillars which Octave’s into the push-pull operation.
tuous blacksmith tries the trick on his success story – not a fairy tale – banks On the other hand, in the mono tube
mother-in-law which miserably fails. Mo- on: operational safety and durability. power amp – abridged MRE 220 – now
ral: any kind of art needs to be mastered. prevails a powerful push-pull mode
Only very few people master the art of POWER GALORE again. The generous output – the
tube amp building so well like Andreas Numerous features such as the “soft measuring lab ascertained 234 watts in-
Hofmann. However, for decades the start“ lo¬gic or the rigorous electronic to 4 ohms – is provided by four pento-
boss of the Baden mid-sized company monitoring of all parameters serve this des from Russian maker Tung Sol, me-
Octave has been fighting against fairy value preservation. But also the coura- anwhile Hofmann’s almost exclusive
tales, myths and exorbitances of the in- ge to challenge dog¬mas and to bite purveyor by appointment. As standard
dustry. His HP 700 SE/MRE 220 pre-/ the bullet characterize Hof¬mann’s am- we see four KT120s glow. Those who
power amp trio are also creatures of a plifiers. For instance, those transistors want to experiment with the equal-base
knowledgeable mind, based on solid ex- demonized by other developers have KT88, KT90, KT100, 6550 or even EL34

46 www.audio.de ›10 /2021