Sr45 or mainline

[xcortes]

While listening to Doc's Big Pre and realizing it's still the best I've heard through my Sonys I realized that for my next iteration of horn amps I could do three mainlines.

I will triamp with the less efficient transducer being 106dB efficient.
I need volume controls in each amp.
I will use a Beepre.

I was planning on doing three pairs of the upcoming sr45 with my tl404s but now I'm leaning towards three Mainlines with the said autoformers, maybe 437As.

I like dhts a lot but listening to the big pre with its ccs sr ccs is like a breeze. One stage less has to help. And i will still have dhts in the pre so...

Opinions?

[Paul Birkeland]

IIRC, the very first Mainline built  (Ca. 2002?) did have binding posts on the back.  I think it made 0.4-0.6W, somewhere in there.

The biasing arrangement in the currnet Mainline is intended to deliver maximum power, so that should help you get there.  We could probably substitute the Steremour output iron so you can get a chance to listen to them before building in the TL404's. 

-PB

[xcortes]

Well, I alrady have the three pairs of 404s so....

How much room is there for the output transformers? Seems like plenty looking at the pic but I don't nknow what's under the hood.

[johnsonad]

On a similar line of thought, can the outputs be paralleled to double the power? I could live with 1 watt per channel for my 100dB speakers.

[Paul Birkeland]

There is a reasonable amount of space available for output transformers, but the TL404's aren't exactly "compact"... 

@Aaron - for a 1 watt amp, the 1626, 71A, or 10Y would be some nice low-power DHT's to look at.