David Berning Co211/845usedBerning 211/845 OTLI am a registered Audiogon dealer. Call Rick Brown +1 612 817 1599. Factory recertified with a new 2-year warranty. Auto biases to the 211 or 845 tube. Both tube sets are supplied with the amplifie...45500.00

Berning 211/845 OTL

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hi_fi1 

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Ships fromCarlsbad, CA, 92009
Ships toWorldwide
Package dimensions28.0" × 28.0" × 16.0" (110.0 lbs.)
Shipping carrierFedEx
Shipping costFree
Original accessoriesBox, Manual
AverageResearch Pricing

I am a registered Audiogon dealer. Call Rick Brown +1 612 817 1599.

Factory recertified with a new 2-year warranty.

Auto biases to the 211 or 845 tube. Both tube sets are supplied with the amplifiers.

These amplifiers are Improved beyond the 2015 Absolute Sound amplifier of the year with SMc Audio’s (Steve McCormack) Gravity Base. A twenty-pound brass multi-layer damping and mechanical ground system built for Berning /Hi Fi One amplifiers. It forms the base of the amplifier, adding stiffness, rigidity, and a termination path for vibrational energy. The built-in Stillpoints OEM Ultra bases are installed and will accept any 1/4-20 pitch ’foot’. Thus providing the proprietary circuitry an idealized environment to reproduce sound with the least degradation. 

NOS small tube set, dual silver WBT binding posts, and Psvane Western Electric replica 211 and 845 tubes. 60 WPC, Triode, Class A, Zero feedback, OTL.

Both 211 and 845 tubes auto-bias and the mono amplifiers are plug-n-play worldwide based on their high-speed switch mode, full power factor corrected power supplies.

Carlsbad California based demonstrations can be arranged by appointment. See my website for rbhifi1.com for reviews of the original amp and the demonstration system.

Original packaging is provided.

These OTL amplifiers run real-world loudspeakers. They are not as speaker-dependent as conventional OTL’s. The patented ZOTL impedance matching circuit and advanced switch-mode power supply provides sufficient power transfer to run all Magicos, Wilsons, Sonus Faber, Karma (et.al.), electrostatic, horns, ribbons (except Apogee), and some planar magnetic speakers. The super-low noise floor was specifically developed with horns.

In short, this is not a conventional OTL amplifier in design nor does it have the same degree of load sensitivity as a typical OTL. lt does not require a large number of tubes to run in parallel (and highly biased greatly shortening tube life) to get the impedance down enough to directly drive the loudspeaker. This typically limits conventional OTL designs to 6C33 and 6AS7 tubes. A conventional OTL will require eight 6AS7 output tubes to get 60 WPC. In the Berning design, four 211 or 845 tubes generate 60wpc class A, triode. More importantly, neither conventional OTL tube provides the triode sonics of the 211 and 845.

The elegant Berning solution to the conventional output transformer is an impedance converter that does not have the output tubes directly connected to the speaker.


Excerpted with permission from Robert Harley’s Absolute Sound review: "...I won’t mince words: The Berning 211/845 is the most beautiful sounding amplifier I’ve ever heard. One could easily invoke the stereotype of a triode amplifier that has no feedback and lacks an output transformer and immediately jump to the conclusion that the word “beautiful” means that the amplifier imposes itself on the music in a flatteringly euphonic way, like a soft-focus filter on a lens. But that’s not the case. The Berning sounds beautiful because the music sounds beautiful; this amplifier simply introduces less artifice and coloration that would diminish that beauty.


The 211/845 is unique in the way it strips away a kind of electronic tincture, leaving in its place a totally natural and believable musical presentation. With most superb systems, certain recordings can, at certain times, create a “fool-you” realism that sounds so lifelike you experience a sudden frisson. The 211/845 delivers such delights regularly, and with apparent ease. Moreover, the experience doesn’t last for a brief moment before the illusion collapses but is sustained for entire pieces of music. It’s quite a magic trick, conjuring a startling palpability by stripping away the last vestige of an electronic signature. It’s as though instruments and voices have been laid bare, with a natural and organic quality.
 
Reproduction of the human voice is a particularly stark example of this amplifier’s utter transparency. I could cite any number of instances, but two come immediately to mind as particularly vivid: Ella Fitzgerald on the 45rpm Analogue Productions LP of Ella and Louis and Jennifer Warnes on The Hunter[Impex LP]. On the track “Moonlight in Vermont” Ella’s entrance is genuinely startling, so convincing is the illusion of a living, breathing human being standing between the loudspeakers. The more modern recording of Warnes was rendered by the Berning with such immediacy that I felt that I heard her voice’s beautiful and unique timbre fully for the first time. In both examples, the Berning conveyed nuances of timbre, dynamics, inflection, phrasing, and expression in previously unparalleled abundance. Thanks to these qualities, the Berning is a crystal-clear window back through time to the original musical event. 

The 211/845 experience is like that of the best direct-to-disc LPs or first-generation analog tapes; you can immediately hear that a layer has been removed between you and the music. In its ability to reproduce instruments and voices with this level of believability, the Berning has no equal in my experience..."

There are no user-replaceable fuses, the amplifier’s protection circuitry is that effective. No more chasing expensive audiophile fuses. Or listening through one.

"Technology in the service of music" is more than a sales slogan with the David Berning company and Hi-Fi One.

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