Hello, this is my first post, although visit these forums often. I recently acquired a 300B SET amp to audition as a summer replacement for my two 845 SET amps which are space heaters. Both of my 845 amps have wonderful tonal balance, articulate bass, reasonably extended highs, fully involving mid range. This is the third summer replacement amp auditioned, the first two class a/b solid state, both nice enough but lacking the palpable, meat on the bones quality of my SETs. The 300B has a nice palpable mid range, highs are a bit rolled which I can probably live with. The big issue for me is lack of articulation in bass, this along with more rolled off highs gives a rather dark presentation.
Overly loose, warm bass has always bothered me, articulate bass is an absolute requirement for me. I suspect a 300b amp may be inherently unsuitable for me. Looking at the impedance curve of Klipschorns, below 8 ohms between aprox. 40hz to 225hz along with steep impedance curve is too much for this amp. No separate taps on amp, assuming 8 ohm on non-separate tap tube amp. It seems the 845 SETs with their 8 ohm taps overcome this limitation, the 300b tube can't handle it. I'm in midst of one mod which may or may not address bass issue in that I replaced the Russian K40Y9 coupling caps with VH Audio Vcaps.
Assuming this 300b isn't satisfactory for me, what amps do you guys think would work for me? At this point I'm planning on auditioning First Watt J2 or F7, another intriguing option would be AGD Audion GaN Tube monoblocks, class D amplifier that supposedly replicates SET amp sound to quite a degree. The class A solid state amps will also be hot, albeit not to the same degree as the 845's. Any other class D amps close to SET sound?