# Butler Tube Blue 575.



## matthewo (Jan 31, 2008)

All I can say is wow. Today I was listening to a DLS A4 in the morning and did a direct swap, to this butler in the afternoon. Sound is almost night and day. I am really surprised at the different in sound; I didn’t change anything with my bitone or any other settings of the system. All I did was swap amps.

The dls a4 was run at 4 ohm per channel 2 channels powering tweeters and 2 channels powering midbasses in the door. The butler tube blue 575 is running the same way. But the tube blue has an extra channel that I’m going to use for a center channel, I haven’t decided on the center channel driver yet.

Both amps are rated at around 75 watts per channel at 4 ohm. But I started out at a lower gain setting on the butler then I was running on the DLS amp, and it still was too much. I ended up with a little over 1/4 gain for the midbass and just at 1/4 gain for the tweeter. These where just a guess cause I ran out of time.

So far the amp sounds very good. I was running the DLS amp without any crossovers enabled, but my bitone has all the crossovers done actively. I really love that the butler tube amp has no crossover, or anything other than the gain knobs. One thing I notice is it seems like I’m not running high pass on the midbasses, they are playing more bass than normal. Not a big deal I will just tweak my crossover settings with the bitone.

One thing to say is, the amp is a lot warmer. I like the sound. But like I said above bass is louder on the midbass even with my crossovers set at around 70 Hz 24db. It seems like there is no crossover. Also the area from 70-500 Hz seems a bit louder then I like. Only a little bit which I can take care of with a little eq work. All and all, this amp is looking to have a lot of potential. Lots of head room.

The sound is warm like I said. I had a bit of a problem with the dls amp, it didn’t sound awesome at lower volumes, probably needed better eqing. But when I cranked it the dls amp sounded good. The butler sounds very strong at low volumes, like all the music is making it to my ear without one area being too overbearing and another being too soft. The sound the butler produces is very precise, it really amazed me. Transitions in music where quick, but it also has the sound of things staying around a bit longer and lingering, and fading out. I know this is somewhat hard to say but think of it on a millisecond level. I even listened to some rap and wow, I could tell a big difference even with higher quality recorded rap music.

There has been so much debate on these amps. How the "tubes" really don’t do much. Because they are in the output stage and the voltage really isn’t high on them. Heck let’s just leave out the fact this amp has tubes, if we just compare it to solid state amps this amp sounds fantastic.

If there are any grips I have about this amp are the connections. I’m not a huge fan of older style spade terminal screw downs, they are fine for speaker terminals, but for the larger style power and ground I’m not too fond. I did crimp on 8 ga terminals, but I didn’t like how flimsy the whole block felt, I could move it with my fingers a bit. It wasn’t connected solid to the chassis. It was just soldered to the board. Also for an amp that didn’t go overboard on adding things like crossovers and led readouts, there are blue LED lights around the tubes, personally I didn’t need this feature and would rather it be all business.

A few of the big plus on build quality and ingenuity is the cooling. I removed the cover to get a look at the 5 big tubes, but found myself looking at other parts of the amp. Under the IC board there are heat sink channels, and in the middle of the board there is a cutout and a nice little 60mm boxed fan. This fan will push/pull (non sure) air though the amp and cool the heat sink channels under the amps board. Cool design. I’m sorry I didn’t get any internal pictures for you but it looks very similar to the 475 that can be found on ampguts.com. Pretty much h is just a bit longer and has an extra tube in the middle of the four tubes.

So if your thinking of trying a tube go with a butler, try it out, im sure you will not regret it. i was a bit scared at first, but i am plesently suprised . oh and yes she is a big girl, that is a hertz hp1d 2300 watter next to it. it hardly fit my location as you see.


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## EricP72 (Mar 23, 2008)

nice review. im in the market for 2 four channel amp. this review bas ljt tbis amp in my top 3to choose from, im also looking at the massive audio that was just reviewed, and the jl hd amps. wonder how much power these send to a pair anarchy exodus mid bass drivers. esp since they are 8ohms eacb.


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## Eldoris (Jan 2, 2011)

very well


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## Jroo (May 24, 2006)

Is this the butler amps that are selling on ebay. I am trying to figure out if these are being done by the original company?


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## DAT (Oct 8, 2006)

I love the Butler Tube amps, they are not true Tubers but decent all the same..


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## davidebender (Dec 23, 2010)

If you can add a power station it will probably sound much better, even if you think it's not possible as of now 
Most of these hybrid tube amps work best at high voltages (14,4v and more, ask the manufacturer for the best voltage). IIRC the US Amps one was like a totally different amp at 16v.


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## jimmy2345 (Jul 12, 2010)

manish said:


> nice review. im in the market for 2 four channel amp. this review bas ljt tbis amp in my top 3to choose from, im also looking at the massive audio that was just reviewed, and the jl hd amps. wonder how much power these send to a pair anarchy exodus mid bass drivers. esp since they are 8ohms eacb.


You are comparing apples and oranges. The JL's don't hold a candle to the Butlers.


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## matthewo (Jan 31, 2008)

yeah i bought mine on ebay, he was having a christmas sale, it came directly from bk butler i ended up paying $420 shipped for a brand new 575, and i love it.

you are correct its not a full tube amp like the Tru tech ones or milbert. but i mean those full tube amps dont putout tons of power, like the butler, and they are soooo expensive.

lets just make it easy, dont even think about tubes, for the price this amp really makes good clean power for your front stage. i have been tuning just a bit and it really does sound good. i now have a single midrange center channel and it makes the sound a bit more full.

now i just cannot wait to get my tru tech hammer in for the subwoofer


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## boricua69 (Oct 14, 2009)

I HAVE THE BUTLER 2150 AND NOTICE THAT PERFORMS GREAT IN MIDRANGE ZONE. I DON'T LIKE THE HIGH AND LOW FREC PERFORMANCE. IF YOU WANT TO COMPARE AGAINST DLS; USE THE TA2 AND TELL ME IF THE BUTLER SOUND BETTER.


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## draft6969 (Aug 4, 2009)

Hey good review. i picked up a 475 and have been waiting to use it in my new jeep install, but i have to wait till i make it home (im out of town working) so have you heard any full tube amps to compare it to? i have been using a hvt754 planet audio tube for a while and liked it over all my other solid state amps. Thats why i cant wait to here this one.


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## vecc205 (Nov 18, 2007)

The butler tube amp is not the same type amp as the US Amps, Planet Audio amps or any other hybrid that uses the tube in the preamp section of the amplifier. The butler amp uses the tubes as a diode and there is not much voltage across them and they are located towards the output stage and not input where more of the tube sound comes from as far as I understand. Also this amp does not have global feedback only feedback to correct for DC offset. This is all I know maybe someone else has more info and can chime in. I agree with it sounding better with higher voltages. Well anyway good choice of an amp I love the way my butlers sound.


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## BMWTUBED (Aug 25, 2007)

I owned and used a 475 for several years and while it was a great amp, I didn't really feel like it sounded any different than any other great amp. I compared it to Helix A4, Audison VRX, Tru and a few others. Wouldn't hesitate to use one again.


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