I found this thread and decided to give it a try.
Ran my Streamliner at 16 ohms tonight -- a revelation
I built a series cable out of parts I had on hand. Regular two wire speaker cable and a couple two pole speakon connectors at the cab end, a larger four pole at the amp end. Joined connectors are hiding in the four pole speakon housing.
Maybe half an hour of messing around.
The test drive was glorious, the Streamliner acts like a whole new beast pushed harder, but with a reasonable volume. The fEafuls like what they are getting.
I’m running a pair of fEarful 12/6 cubes.
With one fEarful, at 8 ohm, the Streamliner would do some of the tube power amp behaviors, but it was getting loud. Both fEarfuls in parallel, 4ohm, was stunning, but not getting the tubey thing going, just great, loud, clean, with the tube pre amp flavors.
By going to 16 ohm with the series cable, I get all the gain staging in the tube preamp, and the tube power amp behaviors. It’s convincingly tube like, but the volume is reasonable. (Well, the high side of reasonable, anyway)
I think this would even better with a pair of cabs that had lower output than the fEarfuls. All the tube overdrive and saturation with less volume.
I figured there’s more of these hybrid tube pre/ class D amps that have the same sort of power amp emulation built in if you can push them. Seems like a cheap way to teach your amp new tricks. Cheaper than a low watt boutique tube head anyway.
