What is Rocking Your World? SS or Tube Amps? Share Here!

[megasat16]

Ok! I've finally decided to start a friendly discussion about what is rocking your world. Is it your Best SS or your Best Tube Amps and Pre rocking for you?

Share your things here....don't be embarrassed if you get beat in this. It's just for Funs. No kness, knuckles and elbows allowed in this thread regardless of your age. (you there, RT1?)

As a guy with background in EE, I love all kinds of Electronics and all are funs to me. Anything (SS or Tubes) rocks my world as long as it has the closest representation of the actual sound and sweet to my ears. ;)

But for all of you Die Hard Veterans, let your vengeance out in this thread to Rule The World. :p

[megasat16]

Oh...Here is a few pros and cons that I wanted to start in this. You just add more to it.

Tubes
-------
Pros : Looks Pretty, Nice, Warming Sound if done it right, can rolls tubes for better sonic.

Cons : Could be expensive (Cost), Maintenance (Tube Life expectancy), Could be eye an eyesore if it's buring too bright, Fire Hazard (not really).

Solid State (SS)
----------------
Pros : Easy Simple and Cheap Install, No Need to Roll Any Tube, Just Roll Entire Amp by purchasing a new SS and improve sonic (dump the old one to me), Sounds Good, Mostly Good Power for less cost than Tube

Cons : Everything Tube Guys Doesn't like! (Ok, I am a little biased here but it's left out for you Tube Guys).

[thuffman03]

Well I run Carver TFM amps which are SS but are made to sound like a tube amp.

Sunfire amps are also like that. Some of them have a switch to allow you to choose how you want them to act like.

Though I cannot verify that this is true that is what I have been told. And since I do not own a tube amp, yet, I guess all that I just said is hear say and not admissable in court.

[Early B.]

I joke a lot when it comes to gear because no one should take this hobby seriously. There's virtually nothing objective about it, so opinions fly freely, sometimes strongly.

With that said, tubes rule, you punk bastards!!!

[Early B.]

OK seriously --

I've owned SS and tube gear, and for some reason, I keep coming back to tubes. The reason is simple -- less perceived distortion -- especially when you crank it up. SS cuts like a serrated knife, but tubes are butter knives, and if you like biscuits for breakfast, get yourself a butter knife. Likewise, if you like your music buttery smooth and without an edge to it, go tubular.

Also, with tubes you get more for your money, IMO, if you're a smart shopper on the used market. For instance, I'd be hard pressed to find comparable SS monos for the price I paid for my tube monos.

The biggest benefit of tube gear is the ability to tweak the sound to your personal preferences with tube rolling. With SS, you're stuck with one sound.

[hearingimpared]

I use a combination of SS & Tubes although it's the tubes that make the rig. I love my integrated hybrid amp, I love my Class A tubed CD player and I use a tube buffer on my SACD player. My phono pre is a Spectral SS pre amp but I am either going to replace it with a tube phono pre or put a tube buffer between it and my integrated.

Tubes are what I needed to complete my rig.


TUBES RULE!

[cnh]

Hey boys.

Could someone explain, "tub rolling". What is it and why would one do it.

Thanks,

Also, tubes are definitely warmer sounding than 'most' SS amps. And they also give the illusion of having more power at lower wattages?

But there are some nice SS amps out there. It is true that digital sources tend to get harsh when you reach maximum volumes even on higher end SS gear.

Finally, since I haven't dealt with a tube amp for more than a decade or so. Just how long do those tubes last. And who supplies new ones. Doesn't sound like much of a market for that OLD tech stuff! I mean outside of tube amps, everything else is solid state circuitry that's outdated every couple of years--or replaced.

I remember the old B&W TVs with their tubes which would burn out regularly. Then came the circuit boards and TVs that had a 20+ year lifespan! I have an old Kenwood SS that's over 18 years old and sounds as good today as it did in 1990?

cnh

[Mike Reeter]

I have just recently put a tubed amp. in the rack,and Early B's comparisons are right on the money.

Up until now,I've always had SS amps. in the mix,along with a tubed pre and cdp.

When I would want some volume,that digital glare would hit me right in the face,always too bright,and very fatiquing...for the longest time I couldn't figure out what the problem was...I changed wires,cables,speakers,tubes,you name it.

Finally picked up a decent used tube amp,and all is well...the top end is now as smooth as silk,yet detailed...high note guitar riffs,vocals,no worries.

I'm sure there are SS amps that would accomplish this also,but I'm all tubed,and plan on staying that way:D

[heiney9]

OK seriously --

I've owned SS and tube gear, and for some reason, I keep coming back to tubes. The reason is simple -- less perceived distortion -- especially when you crank it up. SS cuts like a serrated knife, but tubes are butter knives, and if you like biscuits for breakfast, get yourself a butter knife. Likewise, if you like your music buttery smooth and without an edge to it, go tubular.

Also, with tubes you get more for your money, IMO, if you're a smart shopper on the used market. For instance, I'd be hard pressed to find comparable SS monos for the price I paid for my tube monos.

The biggest benefit of tube gear is the ability to tweak the sound to your personal preferences with tube rolling. With SS, you're stuck with one sound.

In response to your "SS cuts like a serrated knife". These are some of the thoughts of NP, and I tend to agree with him. It's also the basis I took a chance with the Aleph and I am not in any way disappointed.............in fact quite the opposite it has exceeded all my expectations by a wide margin. This is like no other SS amp I've heard.

I authored the first patent on the dynamically biased Class A amplifier in 1974, however I have not used the technique for the last 15 years. The reason is that I found the quality of sound associated with an efficient Class A operating mode inferior in depth and less liquid at high frequencies, simply because it operates at reduced bias at low levels. Given the plethora of cool running "Class A" amplifiers on the market, you might say I opened a Pandora's box.

A very important consideration in attempting to create an amplifier with a natural characteristic is the selection of the gain devices. A single ended Class A topology is appropriate, and we want a characteristic where the positive amplitude is very, very slightly greater than the negative. For a current gain device, that would mean gain that smoothly increases with current, and for a tube or field effect device a transconductance that smoothly increases with current. Triodes and Mosfets share a useful characteristic: their transconductance tends to increase with current. Bipolar power devices have a slight gain increase until they hit about an amp or so, and then they decline at higher currents. In general the use of bipolar in a single ended Class A circuit is a poor fit. Another performance advantage shared by Tubes and Fets is the high performance they deliver in simple Class A circuits. Bipolar designs on the market have between five and seven gain stages associated with the signal path, but with tubes and Mosfets good objective specifications are achievable with only 2 or 3 gain devices in the signal path. Readers of The Audio Amateur Magazine will be familiar with my "Zen" design, which uses a Mosfet in a power amplifier which has only one gain stage, and only one gain transistor. Research continues at Pass Labs in improving the performance of very simple gain circuits.

Yet a third advantage tubes and Mosfets have over bipolar devices is their greater reliability at higher temperatures. As noted, single ended power amplifiers dissipate comparatively high wattages and run hot. Bipolar devices are much more prone to failure at high temperatures. In a decision between Triodes and Mosfets, the Mosfet's advantage is in naturally operating at the voltages and currents we want to deliver to a loudspeaker. Efforts to create a direct coupled single ended triode power amplifier have been severely limited by the high voltages and low plate currents that are the province of tubes. The commercial offerings have not exceeded 8 watts or so, in spite of hundreds of dissipated watts. Transformer coupled single ended triode amplifiers are the alternative, using very large gapped-core transformers to avoid core saturation from the high DC current, but they suffer the characteristic of such a loosely coupled transformer as well. The promise of the transconductance characteristic in power amplifiers in providing the most realistic amplified representation of music is best fulfilled in Mosfet single ended Class A circuitry where it can be used very simply and biased very high.

The Pass Aleph 30 uses International Rectifier Hexfet Power Mosfets exclusively for all gain stages. These Mosfets were chosen because they have the most ideal transfer curve for an asymmetric Class A design. Made in the United States, they have the highest quality of power Mosfets we have tested to date. We match output devices to within 2%. The input devices are matched in circuit for lowest noise and distortion. The smallest of these, the input devices, are capable of peak currents of 5 amps. The largest are capable of peaks of 25 amps each, and are run in parallel pairs. The power Mosfets in the Pass Aleph 30 have chip temperatures ratings to 150 degrees Centigrade, and we operate them at small fractions, typically 20% of their ratings. For extended life, we do not allow chip temperatures to exceed 85 degrees C. Regardless of the type of gain device, in systems where the utmost in natural reproduction is the goal, simple single ended Class A circuits are the topologies of choice.

It is a very simple topology, which is a key part of the sound quality. Other solid state amplifier designs have five to seven gain stages in the signal path in order to get enough gain to use feedback to provide adequate performance. In this amplifier, we get greater linearity by providing much more bias through two gain stages: a differential input stage, and the output transistors.

Mosfets provide the widest bandwidth of solid state power devices, however they were not chosen for this reason. The design of the Aleph 30 does not seek to maximize the amplifier bandwidth as such. The capacitances of the Mosfets provide a natural roll-off in conjunction with the resistive impedances found in the circuit, and the simplicity of the circuit allows for what is largely a single pole roll-off characteristic. The slew rate of the amplifier is about 40 Volts/µS load, which is about 10 times faster than the fastest signal you will ever see, and about 100 times faster than what you will be listening to. In and of itself, the slew rate is an unimportant factor when evaluating tube and simple Mosfet designs. It becomes more important with complex circuit topologies where there is heavy dependence on feedback correction, but even then its importance has been overstated.

The amplifier is powered by a toroidal transformer which charges 120,000 µF capacitance. This unregulated supply feeds the output transistors only with a full power ripple of about .3 volt. The power draw of this system is constant regardless of the music playing through the amplifier. As such, it does not depend on a high quality AC outlet or special power cords, since the dynamic performance does not create a variation in AC line draw. If the AC line is running low, the output stage will bias to a higher current level by way of compensation.

The amplifier is stable into any load impedance or reactance including a direct short. The Aleph 30 is impervious to electrostatic shock at the input and dead shorts at the output. You can safely plug and unplug inputs and outputs while the amplifier is running. (Do not try this with other products). The Aleph 30 is protected from overheating by a 75 degree C. thermostatic switch, and from internal failure by a slow-blow fuse."

This amp exhibits absolutely no digital glare and you can run it all the way up to 95dB or so with out strain on your ears or compression. The linearity and 2 gain stages is what sets SS amps like this apart from the typical SS offerings.

[Ricardo]

There is no wrong answer here; everyone is right.

I've done everything tubed; CDP, pre, amp. Right now I have SS everywhere, except for my phono pre that has a couple valves. You can achieve great sound (and simply) with SS gear.

















I am eyeballing a balanced tubed preamp though......

[megasat16]

Hey boys.

Could someone explain, "tub rolling". What is it and why would one do it.


cnh

Tub rolling seems quite easy to me and I've done it when I was very young. ;)

SS gears aimed at very high discerning ears have impeccable accuracy and tonal smoothness even any highly rated tube gears have to bow. But different people, different taste...

At some creative level of SS preamp gears, you could swap out OP-AMP just like rolling tubes and have your own taste of what music sounds like. The thing about SS is that you can make a really good clean SS amp and preamp and it lasts a very long time. Try that with tubes and you'll be on your toes when the time comes to change out with a new set of tubes. When the tubes worn out, you'll just feel like the 16 yrs old bride you married yesterday suddenly becomes 60 today. :D

But choosing gears between SS and Tube, No one is Wrong and Never Been Wrong. It's all about what one can hear and appreciates. And most people switch back and forth many times in this life long quest for audio appreciation.

Thanks God for not making all men alike. Otherwise, we would need billions of clones of Alba or J. Lo or someone. :o

Anything Rocks your world RULES!

[heiney9]

Even more on the design philosophy of a musically engaging SS amp.

The Pass Aleph 30 is unique in a number of ways:
Most amplifiers on the market have between five and seven gain stages in series between the input and the output. The Aleph 30 has but two, and enjoys a very direct path from input to output, further enhancing the purity of the circuit and the resulting sound.

The output stage of the Aleph 30 is a unique blend of traditional design and innovation addressing the unique requirements of loudspeakers. Previous methods of loading the output stage have used networks consisting of resistors, coils, transformers, and active current sources, all of which offer an optimal load line based on a resistive load. The Aleph 30 has a
current source topology which optimizes performance for a wide range of impedance and reactance in the load, improving all aspects of performance into real loudspeakers. Pass Labs has US patent No. 5710522 on this output stage topology.

The Aleph 30 is unique in that there are no adjustments of any kind in the circuitry. There are no potentiometers to adjust. The operating parameters of bias currents and DC offset and soon are defined by physical constants, and will not go out of adjustment. Most important, the Aleph 30 brings improvement to the recreation of subjective sonic reality. The amplifier delivers detail and subjective space rarely found in semiconductor circuits,
coupled with the authority and clarity rarely found in tube amplifiers.
The Pass Aleph 30’s ancestry lies in the highly praised Aleph 3. We have kept virtually all of the circuit design and choice of parts intact.

So far there has been a failure in the attempt to use specifications to characterize the subtleties of sonic performance. Amplifiers with similar measurements are not equal, and products with higher power, wider bandwidth, and lower distortion do not necessarily sound better. Historically, that amplifier offering the most power, or the lowest IM distortion, or the
lowest THD, or the highest slew rate, or the lowest noise, has not become a classic or even been more than a modest success.

For a long time there has been faith in the technical community that eventually some objective analysis would reconcile critical listener's subjective experience with laboratory measurement. Perhaps this will occur, but in the meantime, audiophiles largely reject bench specifications as
an indicator of audio quality. This is appropriate. Appreciation of audio is a subjective human experience. We should no more let numbers define audio quality than we would let chemical analysis be the arbiter of fine wines. Measurements can provide a measure of insight, butare no substitute for human judgment.

As in art, classic audio components are the results of individual efforts and reflect a coherent underlying philosophy. They make a subjective and an objective statement of quality which is meant to be appreciated. It is essential that the circuitry of an audio component reflects a philosophy which address the subjective nature of its performance first and foremost.
Lacking an ability to completely characterize performance in an objective manner, we should take a step back from the resulting waveform and take into account the process by which it has been achieved. The history of what has been done to the music is important and must be considered a part of the result. Everything that has been done to the signal is embedded in it,
however subtly.

Experience correlating what sounds good to knowledge of component design yields some general guidelines as to what will sound good and what will not:

1) Simplicity and a minimum number of components is a key element, and is well reflected in the quality of tube designs. The fewer pieces in series with the signal path, the better. This often true even if adding just one more gain stage will improve the measured specs.

2) The characteristic of gain devices and their specific use is important. Individual variations in performance between like devices is important, as are differences in topological usage. All signal bearing devices contribute to the degradation, but there are some different characteristics are worth attention. Low order nonlinearities are largely additive in quality, bringing false warmth and coloration, while abrupt high order nonlinearities are additive and
subtractive, adding harshness while losing information.

3) Maximum intrinsic linearity is desired. This is the performance of the gain stages before feedback is applied. Experience suggests that feedback is a subtractive process; it removes information from the signal. In many older designs, poor intrinsic linearity has been corrected out by large application of feedback, resulting in loss of warmth, space, and detail. High idle current, or bias, is very desirable as a means of maximizing linearity, and gives an
effect which is not only easily measured, but easily demonstrated: Take a

Class A or other high bias amplifier and compare the sound with full bias and with bias reduced. (Bias adjustment is easily accomplished, as virtually every amplifier has a bias adjustment pot, but it should be done very carefully). As an experiment it has the virtue of only changing the bias and the expectations of the experimenter.

As the bias is reduced the perception of stage depth and ambiance will generally decrease. This perception of depth is influenced by the raw quantity of bias current. If you continue to increase the bias current far beyond the operating point, it appears that improvements are
made with bias currents which are much greater than the signal level.

Typically the levels involved in most critical listening are only a few watts, but an amplifier biased for ten times that amount will generally sound better than one biased for the few watts. For this reason, designs which operate in what has been referred to as "pure" Class A are preferred because their bias currents are much larger than the signal most of the time. As mentioned, preamp gain stages and the front ends of power amplifiers are routinely single
ended "pure" Class A, and because the signal levels are at small fractions of a watt, the efficiency of the circuit is not important.

4) Given the assumption that every process that we perform on the signal will be heard, the finest amplifiers must employ those processes which are most natural. There is one element in the chain which we cannot alter or improve upon, and that is the air. Air defines sound, and serves as a natural benchmark. Virtually all the amplifiers on the market are based on a push-pull symmetry model. The pushpull symmetry topology has no particular basis in nature. Is it valid to use air's characteristic as a model for designing an amplifier? If you accept that all processing leaves its signature
on the music, the answer is yes.

One of the most interesting characteristics of air is its single ended nature. Sound traveling through air is the result of the gas equation
PV1.4 = 1.26 X 104 where P is pressure and V is volume, and whose curve is illustrated in fig. 1. The small nonlinearity which is the result of air's characteristic is not generally judged to be significant at normal sound levels, and is comparable to the distortion numbers of fine amplifiers. This
distortion generally only becomes a concern in the throats of horns, where the intense pressure levels are many times those at the mouth, and where the harmonic component can reach several per cent.

Fig. 1 shows the single ended nature of air. We can push on it and raise the pressure an arbitrary amount, but we cannot pull on it. We can only let it relax and fill a space as it will; the pressure will never go below "0". As we push on air, the increase in pressure is greater than the corresponding decrease when we allow air to expand. This means that for a given
motion of a diaphragm acting on air, the positive pressure perturbations will be slightly greater than the negative. From this we see that air is phase sensitive.

As a result of its single ended nature, the harmonic content of air is primarily 2nd order, that is to say most of the distortion of a single tone is second harmonic. The phase of this distortion reflects the higher positive pressure over the negative. Air's transfer curve also shows also that it is monotonic, which is to say its distortion products decrease smoothly as the acoustic level decreases. This is an important element that has
often been overlooked in audio design and is reflected in the poor quality of early solid state amplifiers and D/A and A/D converters. They are not monotonic: the distortion increases as the level decreases.

The usual electrical picture of an audio signal is as an AC waveform, without a DC component. Audio is represented as alternating voltage and current, where positive voltage and current alternates with negative in a reciprocal and symmetric fashion. This fiction is convenient because it lends itself to the use of an energy efficient design for amplifier power stages known as push-pull, where a "plus" side of an amplifier alternates operation with a
"minus" side. Each side of a push-pull amplifier handles the audio signal alternately; the "plus" side supplying positive voltage and current to the loudspeaker, and the "minus" side supplying negative voltage and current.

cont.

[heiney9]

cont'

Problems with push-pull amplifier designs associated with crossover distortion have been discussed elsewhere at length, and one of the primary results is non-monotonicity. Class B and many AB designs have distortion products that dramatically increase with decreasing signal. This is reduced greatly by Class A mode, but crossover distortion remains as a lower order discontinuity in the transfer curve.

For reproducing music as naturally as possible, push-pull symmetric operation is not the best approach. Air is not symmetric and does not have a push-pull characteristic. Sound in air is a perturbation around a positive pressure point. There is only positive pressure, more positive pressure, and less positive pressure. Push-pull circuits give rise to odd ordered harmonics, where the phase alignment reflects compression at both positive and negative peaks and crossover nonlinearity near the zero point.

Push-pull operation in amplifiers is commonly portrayed by the analogy of a two-man saw cutting down a tree. Certainly if we are cutting down trees by hand, we would opt for this method, as it would be much more efficient.
As we are not cutting down trees, I much prefer the image of a violinist holding the bow at one end with one hand. Only in this manner does the musician gain the degree of control and precision required to produce the range and subtlety required by music. And so it is with single-ended amplifiers.

Only one linear circuit topology delivers the appropriate characteristic, and that is the single ended amplifier. Single ended amplification only comes in pure Class A, and is the least efficient form of power stage you can reasonably create, typically idling at more than twice the rated output power under the best of conditions. Single ended operation is not new. It is routinely found in the low level circuitry of the finest preamplifying stages and in the front end circuits of the finest power amplifiers. The first tube
power amplifiers were single ended circuits using a single tube driving the primary of a transformer.

Single ended Class A operation is generally less efficient than push-pull Class A. Single ended Class A amplifiers tend to be even bigger and more expensive than their push-pull cousins, but they have a more natural transfer curve.
The "purity" of Class A designs has been at issue in the last few years, with "pure" Class A loosely defined as an idling heat dissipation of more than twice the maximum amplifier output. For a 100 watt amplifier, this would be 200 watts out of the wall at idle.

As the Pass Aleph 30 idles at four times its rated output, I think we can safely think of it as “pure”. Designs that vary the bias against the musical signal will generally have bias currents at or below the signal level. This is certainly an improvement from the viewpoint of energy efficiency, but the sound reflects the lesser bias point.

This is what's rocking my world right now :D

[Ricardo]

Brock, do you actually think anyone is going to read all that????????












We know you are enjoying the new amp......but don't exaggerate.....:D

[TNRabbit]

I LOVE my Sunfire amps; I've heard tube amps that rule, but for the ease of ownership & cost, I'm stuck on Sunfire SS.

[heiney9]

Brock, do you actually think anyone is going to read all that????????












We know you are enjoying the new amp......but don't exaggerate.....:D

Humor me and tell me everyone will read it :D:). Those are Nelson's words explaining in pretty plain English a design philosophy. Call me a nerd, but following a lot of his writings and understanding his design principles is what led me to this amp. It's taken over a year to find one, from the right seller, cond. and price and to finally the pull the trigger :D

I am not in anyway disappointed and yes I am gushing a bit...........but damn it sounds fan-effing-tastic! :)

H9

[SlowcarIX]

SS - class d



:D

[Norm Apter]

Any ideas from folks on running a COMBO of tubes and SS gear?

If you've tried this and found a good combo, let us know what sort of combo you liked (i.e. SS amp with tube CDP, etc), and you should feel free to name/brand drop.

Or are folks pretty much of the opinion, either all tubes or all SS?

[Face]

I'm sold on SS amplification at the moment, but will soon be adding tubes elsewhere in the chain.

[cfrizz]

I'm SS all the way. I have 0 interest in tube anything. I WANT nice consistent sound. and digital harshness is in the ear of the beholder.

When Bagged Lancer & I went to Goodwins Audio, I made sure that we listened to some tube gear. Mark fell in love with it, because while listening to Clapton Unplugged the "edge" & loudness was taken off of the applause of the crowd.

It was & I hated that it was. IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE THERE, it's a live performance. When was the last time you went to a concert & everyone applauded as softly as they could? That doesn't even make any sense!

Now this is totally different from having ear bleeding headaches caused from metal tweeters.

Now here's a question for you, How can you love tubes & yet have speakers with metal tweeters like B & W? In effect, you are defeating the whole purpose of a B & W speaker.

The whole tube crazy confuses me to no end. I just want to plug it in, sit back & enjoy the tunes. No fuss, no muss, just easy listening. If I want to work, I'll go to my job!

[Face]

Aside from taking 5 minutes to bias tubes once every 6 months, it's not really much different than SS.

[hearingimpared]

Any ideas from folks on running a COMBO of tubes and SS gear?

If you've tried this and found a good combo, let us know what sort of combo you liked (i.e. SS amp with tube CDP, etc), and you should feel free to name/brand drop.

Or are folks pretty much of the opinion, either all tubes or all SS?

My Musical Fidelity TriVista 300 is a hypbrid intedgrated amp. The pre is tube the amp is 350 wpc sand.

[SlowcarIX]

Aside from taking 5 minutes to bias tubes once every 6 months, it's not really much different than SS.

you will be there forever every 6 months biasing one of these...:D

[Face]

you will be there forever every 6 months biasing one of these...:D

Yes, but with those, you'll save on heating costs over the winter. :D

[SlowcarIX]

Yes, but with those, you'll save on heating costs over the winter. :D

thats a great idea - listening to warm music by a warm amp :p

[george daniel]

Firebottles :D

[SlowcarIX]

28 X KT90!

http://www.jadis-electronics.com/pop...d=75&lang=eng#

[SlowcarIX]

this one is worst/good...32 x KT90!

http://www.jadis-electronics.com/pop...id=76&lang=eng

[Early B.]

The whole tube crazy confuses me to no end. I just want to plug it in, sit back & enjoy the tunes. No fuss, no muss, just easy listening. If I want to work, I'll go to my job!

There are a bunch of misconceptions out there about tube gear, cfrizz. Most tube gear requires very little maintenance, and tubes can last for many, many hundreds or even thousands of hours. My amps don't even require biasing, so they're essentially plug & play just like SS amps.

The fun part about tube gear is trying different tubes. Of course, you don't have to, but it's nice to know you can. And you gotta admit, they look pretty cool when you dim the lights.

I hope this helps you out with the crazy confusion you have about tubes.

[xj4094dg]

I'm rockin' a Parasound HCA 2200ii for my front LSi 9's. They seem to love it. Its an old amp but sounds great to me and anyone who hears it. Plenty of power and trouble free so far for many years.