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In Reply to: RE: Fourier Panthers Inquiring About Reliability And History posted by Mister Pig on August 29, 2021 at 20:51:55
Never mind. Did some searching of old threads and found out they are bad news. Will stay away.
Follow Ups:
After reading your opening post and associated question, my first thought was that you have the history backwards. It is not that Futterman amplifiers, designed and built by Julius Futterman, are or ever were unreliable. It is that subsequent copycat products, many of which purportedly "improved" upon Futterman's circuit, like the Fourier, the KSS, and the Counterpoint SA4, WERE unreliable, and the unhappy experiences of the owners of those amplifiers fed back on the reputation of Futterman. I have used only OTL tube amplifiers since the early 1970s. In those days, I used Futterman amplifiers, which were by then sort of a boutique item. You had to order from Julius, and he built them to order. I don't know if he even shipped them by that time; I picked up two pairs at his "factory" on 72nd St and Broadway in NYC. He was a very nice man. I ran the same tubes in a pair of H3aa Futtermans for 10 years before replacing them. I never had a single problem, ever. Later on, I owned a pair of Fourier amplifiers and after that a pair of Prodigy amplifiers, which were built like tanks, pretty nearly exactly the Futterman circuit, and pretty reliable. The Fouriers were cheaply built with very poor quality PCBs and connectors, and that may have been their Achilles heel. The KSS and Counterpoint SA4 departed from the Futterman standard in their circuit design, and that may have been the cause of their unreliability. Then of course, there was NYAL. I never owned one of those, but the guys at NYAL were disciples of Julius. They modified his circuit for better bass response. Ralph can say more about that. Suffice to say, when I finally heard an Atma-sphere amplifier in the 90s, I was hooked on the circlotron. However, a real Futterman amplifier properly refurbished or freshly built would still be very nice.
How right you are Lew regarding original Futtermans being reliable. Ive owned a Futterman since 1970 and aside from the caps being replaced, its never had a problem. Ive been driving I've been driving KLH Model Nines since 1971 with the same amp.
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BTW, there is some disagreement about the reputation of Futtermans, and the NYAL incarnation thereof, as to being unreliable.
My own experience has not been perfect, but I remain satisfied. I have owned my NYAL for 30 years.
One of them caught fire once, but was repairable. They have been retubed twice in the time.
My understanding is that dialing them in after a retube is tricky. However, this only needed to be done twice, and the amps drive a very very difficult load and sound fantastic, after all this time.
Well, we've been through this before.
It really wouldn't have mattered what kind of circuit was in use with the Fourier amps. When you run filter caps of questionable quality a good 40 volts above their rating you can expect fireworks.
Was that the problem with the Fourier's? If so, could one swap out that part and expect reliability?
Using under-spec'ed parts seems to be more common than one would like....
This question was asked on audiogon this morning. Here is my response:
Do yourself a favor and stay away from them. We serviced (or tried to) some of the fourier products and ran into serious engineering issues. One example: the rather questionable filter caps used in the power supply were run about 40 volts **above** their marked rating! This results in their exploding. Before I figured this out we had one of these amps on the bench. At one point when I looked away from it one of the caps on the power supply board exploded and embedded itself in a dropped ceiling panel. I'm glad it didn't hit me in the face but my ears were ringing for ten minutes. It made a mess.
I regard it as unethical to service these amps unless problems like that are sorted out. This is simply because they can't otherwise be made reliable, and the cost of fixing the engineering bugs is more than the purchase price. If a person had one of these and didn't experience this or other problems he is a very lucky person and should have invested in the lottery instead.
Now it is true that I am associated with Atma-Sphere which is the largest and oldest OTL manufacturer worldwide. But Fourier was already out of business when this anecdote occurred and that was a good 20 years ago. It was their reliability issues that drove them out IMO. I don't care what amp you get, just don't get a Fourier. If you google my posts on this and other websites, you'll see that I'm not in the habit of badmouthing other's products. I make the exception for this one because so many things were problematic with them. In a nutshell the purchase price is only the tip of the iceberg.
Ralph is right; the quality of the parts left much to be desired. I owned the Fourier Triomphe and the Bindu caps from India were an accident waiting to happen. I also own a Futterman H 3A and it has been very reliable. I used it for 15 years without a single failure, but it has long been retired when I changed speakers.
the Bindu caps from India were an accident waiting to happen.
Back 25 years ago when they were made, India simply was not the place you went to find good quality electrolytics. That they were run well above their stated ratings was adding insult to injury.
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