SET12

20 to 20000 great reponse! Great performance prefered! That can happen but it usually does not! My SET's offer a close compromise! Better than most in my opinion! Wire! Yes I use very good stuff but my SET amps are the differance! SET12

Parrot, That was really good! Not only did it put a smile on my face but I called my girlfriend in to read your post! She doesn't know much about audio but she knows enough about my system and what its capable of as she's reading your post and commenting I'm laughing because even she knows that SET's are way more capable than the general analogy that you have stated of what you think a SET's performance is capable of! As I have stated there is good and bad in every camp. It may be even harder to get great SET performace but it is not unobtainable, There maybe better average performance with push-pull tubes especially with bass performance but more mature listeners are usually more interested in information that lies in the 100 to 20000 hz range than 20 to 100 hz unless your're into Rap, And not that a SET can't work here, This 100 to 20000 hz range is where a SET can and often does accell. I have owned and enjoyed some very good solid state amps but I have yet to enjoy one on a Klipsch whether new or old solid state. The Jollita's I had here were listenable but imformation deficent. And while were talking about old SS its funny how often my friends and I find 50 yr old tube gear still sounding modern and yet old SS often soundind more dated and sometimes down right nasty but not always and sometimes just boring! Because of their often mono chromatic harmonics in which tubes are just the opposite with PP or SET's. And with SET's even giving even more harmonic life! As far as small scale dynamics and weak bass lines I don't like them either! But you won't find them in my SET's![] SET12

I'll Second that to! there is alot of support their!

I just took a look! No model #! It is just stamped in black ink ALLEN ORGAN CO the chassis the potted outputs are stamped in white letters AIRDESIGN 0-40112 the amps are in really nice shape better I think then what I see in your pictures and thats likely mostly dust that I see in yours and I guess it uses a pair 5R4's, Not the 5U4's that I thought it did, I have a few schematics for Allens but not these I was pretty close in remembering the size of the outputs I measured them they are 6in X 5in X 6in the guy that had them had a group of 4, These were out of a church here in WI, Which he had removed them, I bought them then, I've had them siting for about 4 yrs at least they need a couple of chokes as one is missing and I think replacing the supply caps would be in order for long term operation I don't think replacing the coupling caps wouldn't be a bad idea either other than that they are suppose to run and they are suppose to run with just replacing the missing choke they look real good I can borrow a camera and post some pictures if some one has an interest in them. They are also on a chassis 10in deep by 17 in wide I would provide all good tubes but the 6L6's. SET12 P.S. Yes the OD3 does glow purple you'll love that! Oh yah! I have a friend a 35yr Audiophile that owns a pair of Allens I heard them in a store with the famous Genelex KT88's in them as well as KT90's, Warm powerfull and inolveing I told my friend about them! He went and listened to them and couldn't leave the store with out buying them!

Check this out this company both Push-Pull and SET's How about a DIY push pull EL84! It doesn't get any easier than this! Their is alot of fun things that can be done with this simple circuit as you know EL84's are to some the best of the Pentode tube in the world! I don't care for the power supply but its a place to begin I can recomend a tube supply if your interested their is no global feedback here just local! and a single-ended driver stage that BTW can be set up with any number of tubes in the 12AX7 family pin out. I prefer pentode mode for the best dynamics ! with a 100 ohm resistor connected to the screens and plates you have triode mode you could try LED biasing of the driver stage all parts should be available at any number of DIY parts suppliers. http://www.world-designs.co.uk/acatalog/AmpKits.html SET12

Allen Organ Monoblocks I have a pair of Allen Organ amps as well they are huge and each uses a quad of 6L6's a pair of 6SN7's, a pair of 5U4's a OD3 voltage regulator the output is potted it is apprx. 6in X 6in X 6in the amps need minor work. But I'm told they run! I am looking to sell them! As I am into SET's If I get them up and running I will ask more than double for what I paid for them but I would let them go for what I got in them plus shipping which is 400$ If anyone is interested in them I will guarantee the Iron and would replace anything faulty by a match pair of Hammond equivalent or a cash settlement of replacement value of the Hammond line. SET12

Geez that posting button is touchy!!

Pioneer SX series that was good stuff to![8]

As for Yamaha! I have owned the Yamaha C2 preamp and the B2 power amp both very well made and had great sound I also own and still own a Yamaha CT7000 tuner these componets were truly a joy to own! but would I trade the SET performance that I have now! for them? No [] SET12

And Thank You Seti! Those tubes use a high efficency filament called a Thoriated Filament that give a glow that has an emotional appeal as well as a more powerfull expression of music but keep in mind that not all designs using these type of tubes yield great performance the Cary Single-Ended 805 as I have mentioned equiped with a 211 is very authoriative and a very huge sound stage often refered to as the sound stage king another maybe a 845 Bel Canto if you haven't heard a giant SET like these your in for a treat and you might not look back they can be very addicting as I'm hooked even with 10 watts I will in the near future be working on an 833 design nothing like the big Wavac maybe 30-60 watts this is a monster tube in contrast to an 845 or 211. Here is my warm glow that cast shadows to bring me back into the 1920's and 30's listening to Jazz late at night!

see below

Thanks Audible Nectar, Yes, Its very interesting! I have never enjoyed audio more and never had as much fun! DIYing SET's is very enjoyable these are the simplest of amplifiers to build or design each of my SET's have a 200 joule power supply this way more energy than many main stream solid-state intergrated amplifiers or recievers. I might add that I use no preamp CD is direct through my variable outputs on a Sony 37 lb X77ES I do the same for DVD audio as well my preamp was a Motiff this was a CJ product FET preamp some 1200$ in the 1980's new needless to say when I took it out and ran CD direct I was in shock how much everything was better with out it! I can say that I was a real proponet of active line stages untill I had this experiance! The preamp just got in the way of everything. SET12

572-10 / 811-10 10 watt SET Mono Blocks that use 572-10 or 811-10, An LED biased 6EA7 driver with a GZ37 rectifier tube. Class A2 zero volts bias with a diode connected filament to ground that is one anode to each side of the filament then the cathodes are commoned to ground so you end up with a little negative bias when this trick was installed because I did not want to reduce the life of the tube by grounding the negative of its DC filament supply and use anymore filament current in the process the result was the amps dynamics going into orbit. Terry wrote: PS: Back to the thread......Don't think that a SET/SS comparison can be made by listening to one SET rig, vs. a few (possibly inferior) SS power amps. However, many points and observations from the original post are valid and accurate IMHO. And he's right here! Hi Pauln, Thanks much for your experiances that you have posted here I to am a SET lover some 15 years ago I heard a Cary 805 211 equiped single-ended amplifier that profoundly changed my audio direction I couldn't afford them by any means but I knew that some day I could build something like them because I have the skill to. Not being an Engineer but having some Technical training has allowed me to think out of the box with these SETs they are not classicly designed like other SETs. There are other SET designs that are just as good as I feel these are such as ART AUDIO's which are not classicly designed either when I say classicly I mean chokes small and small supplies often they are of very high quality though I have learned how to use very large bulky electrolytics and dispense with their uglyness and then in the final stage use very high quality polyprops in the final stage of my supplies. I do this with out any sacrafice that I know of by diode decoupling basicly and sure there will be people that may frown on this method but it works for me and has impressed many that have heard it including recording engineers and musicans a like. I also discovered a trick that lead me to fantastic transparency which may lead to a patent I hope which was discovered while I was pursueing an idea that I had for my 900 joule phonostage power supply this of course was passed on to my amps. The noise of this supply is over the diodes but with the bulk electro volume of capacitance it enough for a pretty low noise floor all the supply sections are isolated highly from one another by use of the diodes this allows for great current swings of the likes most people I spose have not heard from a SET I find that alot of SET supplies poor for speed and dynamics I believe push-pull fares better for dynamics when conventional supplies are used but push-pull can fare even better using a supply like this as well! I once pulled a 100 ohm power resistor out of the supply chain that was feeding a push-pull pair of EL84's the owner of which said that if I attemped to put it back he'd brake my arm off! what I learned is yes you can have a very low noise supply but there is a cost! That cost equates to speed dynamic punch and imformation that can be veiled by a supply or even left out. I recently had a couple of Jolitas here one was a 30 watt hybrid and the other a 100 watt hybrid both highly musical and both good canidates for Klipsch's 5 yrs ago I would of laughed at someone telling me that I was going to be a proud owner of a klipsch and there are plenty of serious audiophiles that do laugh at them all the time! But not here! Back to the Jollita's with some comments we found the 30 watt Jollita ran out of steam fast and could play the SETs louder which proved again the 5x of SET's power rating is likely true when comparing solid state watts the little jollita was nice but it did not reveal the imformation that the SET was and its soundstage was not as deep or wide it keep the music between the speakers the verticle imaging was not as tall harmonics seemed mono chromed as I like to refer to solid state harmonics in contrast to SETs or even push-pull tube gear you might say I like Technicolor whether it is right or wrong it envoles me in the music and is just one aspect of a SET. The Bass was nice for an amp of this size but it was no match for the SET amps they where more extended including the top end which I expected more from harmonic imformation was almost non existent very little in the way of ambiant cues know their is better solid state out there in this reguard! The Jollita 100 watter now this is one nice integrated amp with remote well made 750$ retail very large torrid power transformer which caused me to take a breath and a gulp I knew this was going to have more of everything. My buddy bought it for his wifes living room system. Well now we can play louder than the SETs but funny thing other than more energy for the bass it was much the same sounding as its little brother again the soundstage width was just between the speakers as though as I was watching an 8 mm film I have read of this but untill I really heard it from these amp comparisons it never really entered my mind when listening to other systems in contrast to the SETs here the Jollita's presentation size was half or less.Harmonics were much the same as the little brothers I was surprised at this especially the bass from this amp I half expected the jollita to do really well subjectively I always knew that my SET amps bass was very good especially with the opinions of others here but the big Jollita just did not have the low end extension of my SETs very surprised here clearly the SETs were way more informative and extened as well as more involving In the words of a 20 yr old here that owns the 30 watt Jollita his final words where upon one last listen to the SET Monos of one of his favorite recordings was "Thats Just Beautifull" I do love a wide deep sound stage there are many solid state amps that can do the same but these SET amps are amazing if I do say so my self. Sometimes the latteral extension from the Forte's is several feet outside the boundries of my listening room and its 18 ft wide 14 ft deep. Speakers are 9 ft apart 2 1/2 ft from the back wall that has full corners I use corner tunes and Monster Pannels behind me that are lead lined these where some 300$ retail I picked up for 50$ each they have been invalueable to me. I belong to www.diyaudio.com also known as SET12 below is a recent comment from an Engineer at www.tubelab.com he takes SETs to extream a vist to his site will put a few smiles on your faces! any way here is a post that I sent to him today as far as the bass of my amps as a guy was complaining that SETs bass is weak. IMHO it all is design! quote: Originally posted by tubelab.com CLEAN bass that these Hammonds put out. If you believe that SE amps don't have good bass, try these transformers, add a little CFB if you want (not necessary but it helps). Hook up some big speakers, and prepare to have your neighbors complain! It happened to me! I got a call from my neighbor that her pictures were moving on her walls! Our living rooms seperated by two garges! Acoustic energy traveled into my wall from my modified Klipsch Forte's up to the roof truss and down it back into her wall! Talk about transient response and people tell me that SE has no bass! I use no EQ and have no sub! Bass produced from my 28lb Hammond 1642's from 10 watts of 572-10's running Class A2 with no CFB! SET12

I have spent time with the Dyna it certainly is a sweet heart! its OPT's are often sought after for other projects it has no 4 ohm tap just 8 and 16. If you'd like to try your hand at soldering take a look at this EL84 beauty! You can also get it assembled from and others! http://www.world-designs.co.uk/acatalog/AmpKits.html

I believe you are a music lover at heart! Just look at the volume of material that you own! You have to ask your self what your really interested here? You also have posted this on the two channel forum. Although many here have multi-channel systems in this neck of the woods many of us do not. I myself went this route and found it very damaging to my real quest to get the most out of Stereo Reproduction which is the bulk of your collection. I down shacking my head from side to side wondering what was going on with my system! A long time audio friend asked what was wrong with me? I told him of my disatisfaction I was having with my system! He looked at me and said no wonder just look at all this wiring and processing! What can I do I asked? he replied get rid of it! By the time we were done his arms were full of wire and we sat down in simple two-channel mode and he said now this is more like it! I agreed! Basicly what I learned is garbage in is garbage out! I'm not saying that Lexicon is garbage ! It is top notch stuff even its two channel outputs are very good! But guess what? I don't use a preamp! Not all situations allow this it requires a fair amount of input sensitivity from a power amp. But the rewards are great! I have a huge soundstage very wide and very deep and a very dynamic with very powerful bass lines that often shocks other SET owners I use Transmitting Triodes which are very strong but not all designs are! This is where Carl is right there are alot of wimpy SET amps out there! More often you to will find in #'s push-pull will be stronger but as I said its not written in stone to be absoulutely the case. My system even though it is 10 watts peak or 5.5 watts RMS and is far more entertaining to me than multi-channel. You can go any number of paths I prefer to stick my funding into the best I can aford in my front end which case is CD right now and if your not investing in a preamp then you can see how you can dump the funds into a even higher level performing source componet! So I'm CD direct to my amps which only have two gainstages when your dealing with solid state often you could be dealing with 5-7 in the power amp alone not to mention how many a SS preamp is using. I use my amps for DVD playback as well I switch the cables I haven't bothered to put switching on them but if I did I would switch the grounds out as well as does ML with some of there preamps with good reason! Magnetic flux from various componets of other gear will often manifest itself on to the chassis of componets and create a voltage from chassis to earth ground this causes current to flow down interconnects the worst I ever saw was 50 volts I measured on my Motiff preamp by reversing the plug at the wall eliminated it but not all componets you not will be able to alot of video stuff just crawls with flux so this may have been a contributor in my Surround experiance but I have no interest in going back as I feel its just costly in contrast to what I can do for 2-channel I said your heart appears to be in music so consider this statement from one of your fellow country men that I read today! So, I use tubes, because tubes represent, at least for me, the rebirth of culture, music, and delicacy. To say this in a word, I say that they're human. SET12

Being crazytubepower for a screen name I went to your bio thought for sure you would be into tube stuff but saw mainstream gear can you comment on that? And what currently are you using for gear?

Cal it is an interesting opinion that you have expressed about where a SETs soundstage comes from and Solid-States. I have to totally disagree with your opinion on this point. I have posted a thread on my local clubs forum called "What Makes For An Amps Wide Soundstage" If you care to read some of the responses you will see that certainly others disagree with this opinion as well. http://newaudiosociety.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=amp;action=display;num=1154525747;start=0#0 I thought alot about some of the points you have made and in a limited way I can agree with many of them but I can also tell you that nothing is written in stone either on SET's, Tube Push-Pull or Solid-State. It appears that you have never heard a SET with guts they do exsist! There is good and bad in everyone of these technology's fingers can be pointed everywhere in each! Although Solid State dominates mainstream consumer audio for the most part Tube gear shares more than half of the High-End market. And with most horn owners that I have read of and know personally tubes are always highly recommended and of those tube owners a great many are SET users and not just for high efficiency alone. Your point on tube clipping is correct for continous power but not musical peaks if you look at the peaks using a burst generator you will see the peaks greatly exceeding the amps wattage ratings! This has been verified by at least two publications one is "Stereophile Magazine" the other is "Audio Express" a DIY magazine formerly called "Glass Audio" in yester- year with a burst generator. SET12

You might try posting this in the HT forum! I myself am not real big into HT multichannel, As I prefer to stick my money into 2 channel where I feel I get more raw quality even for HT. BTW I use no preamp and if I wanted 5.1 surround I still use no preamp their are enough DVD players with 5.1 out with variable outputs and variable for each of the channels along with system level that can be used to drive many poweramps direct. So I would buy your amps first as you can drive them from a DVD player as long as it has 5.1 and variable out. Look for an amp with a sensitivity below a volt if you can! If I was looking for more flexability yes I'd do a multi-channel preamp the best that you can afford more so than any reciever. Hope this helps you! SET12

All of what these guys are saying is true! Power does corrupt! I started with some 800 watts/channel and today I use 10 that are far better than the ear bleeding 800 watts of yesteryear! I can play all kinds of music including Rap there is nothing like shocking 20 yr olds when they show me their 1000 watt/channel car stereo's and come into my place and listen to 10 watts with no EQ play their favorite CD with the same conviction and more imformation their first question is how can that do that? And I tell them it's quality and not quanity and just because I have 10 watts doesn't mean that it can't have guts! Not all amps are equal by any means. Remember you have to have 10 times the power to play twice as loud is the rule normaly so if you have a high quality 50 watter it is going to take you 500 to play twice as loud! And think of the cost here! Don't think of where a volume control is as to what the amp maybe doing most people don't realize that an audio taper volume control at the 12 o'clock position is only outputing 15% of its signal. Most speakers rarely have more than a few watts on them continously in fact 10 to 20 can destroy more than just a few loudspeakers and those levels would have most peoples fingers in their ears! Just take a cheap digital meter and monitor the voltage across it! you will find a Klipsch will be playing pretty loud with just 2.83 volts across an 8 ohm load which is just 1 watt the math is easy just square the voltage divided by the load for wattage Tube amps are different, their peaks can offten exceed 2 to 5 times their actual rated power that is 2-3 for push-pull and up to 5 times for SET's this is from a series of articles published in Stereophile Magazine. In the end its all about what your after! SET12

The GZ37 Rectifier "Thats The Ticket" I use the GZ37 in my power amps as it is true slow turn on! I believe that some the better dynamics of this tube and its harmonics are related to its filament power of 3 amps vs the 2 amps of the classic 5AR4. And keep in mind that only the NOS's I have heard meet the 5AR4 slow turn on spec.'s but that shouldn't be an issue with many amps unless you have a massive supply like my mono's which can cause Sovtecks to arc over and die at turn on. The GZ37's I last purchase cost me some 75$ each. I'm planning on working with the Svetlana half wave Damper tubes that have a 30 second turn on delay and very high pulse current capacity and are 5$ a piece they also have high fault current capacity that I feel contribute to great dynamics. The tube is a 6D22S a nine pin the filament is rated 1.9 amps a pair nearly 4 amps anode curennt rating of 300 ma.. SET12

Thats a Fact! "Balls"

I think Colin is right on the money...............want real deep bass, buy a Sub................... I would agree with these guys I don't think you can go wrong with this! You may have to work with the distance away of course. I have been fortunate to extract some very large soundstages, imaging means alot to me currently I am on the long wall with full corners room is 14x18 speakers are 8ft apart slightly toe in maybe 15 degrees with 5ft from the side wall, Imaging is really huge in my system from 10 watt 572 SET amps as told by my local club peers. I almost always have a wall to wall image with ambiant cues enveloping the entire room, The width of my stage can extend some 10 ft lateraly from my speakers and a 70 plus ft deep stage. I use a highly modified out board crossover with my Forte's the stock crossover still does a decent job but when the parts that it uses sell for 50 cents and a couple of bucks you can't expect much. Several of the guys on the forum have drop in replacement crossovers that will greatly improve the performance of the Forte Like Deans K-Stacks All though I can appreciate the big Khorns I would never own them as I am not a fan of corner placement due to the highly entertaining lateral imaging that I have but if you don't have real good lateral imaging and their are plenty of amps that don't an example was a nice 100 watt Jollita that I had here retailing for some 800$ very rarely was it able to image beyond the speaker boundarys and of course the depth was poor It seemed like watch a little motion picture like an 8mm film the amp was very musical and enjoyable though just not up to my standards. so corner placment might be good! but watch out for the whole in the middle effect you certainly want a nice stable center image first. Good corners are very important! Why ? because if you have the capacity for great lateral imaging there can be a sort of suck out ambient imformation for spacial cues and certainly and likey a bass imbalance I tried in my new place to make due with it but it was just not the ticket I switched walls to have the full corners and I was in heaven! I also use Corner Tunes at the cieling corners to get rid of the muzzle effect just cup your hands together and put them up to your mouth and say something! Thats what the corners are doing! Take your hands away and say the same thing and thats what the Corner tunes are douing for the room, allowing the room to breath allows even louder volumes I have no troble exceeding 100db at my sofa, I also found a real bargin some years back in some Monster pannels which I use behind my listening sofa these were some 300$ each I picked up for 50 each they are lead lined and work great other products will do a good job as well including bass traps to extend the depth of the bass, So room treatments go a long ways. Good Luck SET12 .

SET12, thanks for your reply, and for the compliment. I had forgotten all about the gallery pics I posted on AudioREVIEW's site quite some time ago. Yes, my amp came with stock Shuguang graphite anode 300Bs (beefy lookin' suckers) that to my ears sounded pretty good. Erik Mandaville owns them now, powering his DIY 300B monoblocks, and he's quite impressed with their sound as well. Dammit, I wish I had the amplitude to work on electronics, even simple tests escape me! Plus not having a basic multimeter on hand keeps me from exploring my amp's innards, and I probably wouldn't understand what settings to use, or what the readings even meant during testing! All I do know is I do not have to adjust the bias on my SET amp, which is the reason for having to buy matched duets for both output and driver tubes(?). Hey, You got to start some where! It takes time to become a wizard at this a stuff but you can learn! At www.diyaudio,com the have a mini courses on tube theory! this is one of t5he largest DIY site in the world I am a member using the same screen name SET12 Also for a few laughs and some basic safety lot of pics he can recommend some meters there is a site called www.tubelab.com this guy is an Electrical Engineer with a Masters Degree he looks like gorilla, a tuff guy with fur but he knows tubes. And is a member of DIY I got a copy of your schematic lucky it prints better than what it shows up as on my monitor you can have a ball with this amp I see 3 mods that I would do in a heart beat! but I can help you keep it running! the first thing to do is buy some 8 ohm 20 watt non inductive resistors from radio shack these you use as a load for the outputs when you have them running with out speakers and are taking live measurements I also know color code and how to look at sockets for pin outs along with alot of safety. The cathode resistors are really heavy duty for the 300B so it would be pretty hard to damage them but not impossible! they are a pair of 7.5 watt 2000 ohm resistors for a totall of 15 watts of dissapation with a proper idleing 300B they are heated to 3.6 watts a good safty margine. You might pick up a basic RCA tube manaul reprint I learned how to design my first preamp from it! For safty I'd try a set of cheap Sovtecks to have on hand for back up! SET12 feel free to contact me any time!

"LOVE IT"

Yes, I think chances are everything is fine! But that Bias Resistor is a critical part I would check it! Even with a chessy meter you can measure it directly across it! One of my friends had a Cary that lost a 2A3 that took his out! SET12