Neothoriator 845 headphone amp?

[Thoburn]

I may be seeing things, but under the banner of coming soon I saw "Neothoriator 845 headphone amp".  I thought the 845 was a 30 watt SET tube. Why would you need that much power for a headphone? 

[braubeat]

to get 30 watts from an 845 tube you have to run it at 1200 volts. only people who really know what they are doing (and are a little crazy) are able to do this safely. however you can run this tube at much lower voltages with excellent results. the thoriated tungsten filaments are said to sound better by some. the ones I have heard make me tend to agree.

michael

[Thoburn]

to get 30 watts from an 845 tube you have to run it at 1200 volts. only people who really know what they are doing (and are a little crazy) are able to do this safely. however you can run this tube at much lower voltages with excellent results. the thoriated tungsten filaments are said to sound better by some. the ones I have heard make me tend to agree.

michael

Interesting. What about running at 20 watts? 

[braubeat]

the usual rule is multiply the voltage on the tube by the current through the tube  then divide by 5 (for class A operation). this should give power output. some people push this up a little higher, it depends on distortion and clipping and other things.

michael

[Paul Birkeland]

I may be seeing things, but under the banner of coming soon I saw "Neothoriator 845 headphone amp".  I thought the 845 was a 30 watt SET tube. Why would you need that much power for a headphone? 

You don't.  We run the tube at lower voltage and current that is more suitable for the power demands of typical headphones.

-PB

[Thoburn]

You don't.  We run the tube at lower voltage and current that is more suitable for the power demands of typical headphones.

-PB

Cool! (No pun intended  ) can't wait to hear more about it.

[mcandmar]

There is a forum section dedicated to it here --> http://bottlehead.com/smf/index.php?board=53.0