Horns love tubes

[Colin]

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/sound_practices/10/casual_reactions.htm

"These amps are lightspeed fast and trace signals like super race cars. A well-designed single-ended amp is so much more accurate than its hi-fi ancestors it is shameful’ What you are getting with these amps is gobs more information. More leading edge definition. More harmonic development. More color and texture.

The reason people are so taken when they live with a quality SE design is these amps do not lose the vibratory life force of the music. These amps recover a breathy sort of energy that pressurizes the room, even with small speakers. You know the effect, when you put the tonearm down on the record and you can feel the room pressurize even before the orchestra starts playing. This is the magic of the triode horn experience. The triode thing is not about fun or nostalgia it is about heartbeat, rhythm and intensity. It is about music that LIVES."

[Islander]

That was a fun read, but my horns sound great with my Class D amps, so no 300Bs in my near future.

[Groomlakearea51]

When all else fails.... the volume knob will make it happen....[][A]

[oldtimer]

Typical hifi mag writing. All flowery as Mr. Hankey would say but no actual information.

[JJkizak]

5 watts isn't enough to mask over the cooling fan noise.

JJK

[fenderbender]

Typical hifi mag writing.  All flowery as Mr. Hankey would say but no actual information.

HIdee Hooo

[Audible Nectar]

What I agreed with most in the article is "keep it simple and use high quality parts".

When I first started seriously investigating/sampling/listening to tube gear, I tried to like SET gear, based on what the reviews were saying. My biggest complaint was the "let me show you how detailed I can be" type presentation, almost TOO analytical in some cases. I suspected some of that could be tweaked out through parts selection, and considered 300B as another alternative as it would give a bit more power that I need with some listening material.

But SET gear does have benefits, too - a "closeness" and immediacy not found in other types. I retained some of that "goodness" into memory for a later project, where I sampled a number of McIntosh MC-30s with different parts layouts. What I discovered was that the limitations in some of these old, classic, yet good circuits wasn't the circuit, so much - it was the PARTS. The real revelation came with the teflon capacitors, which brought much of what is good in SET with the added power and fullness of push-pull. PHENOMENAL when using the best tubes. These caps are soooooo transparent as to be "straight wire with gain", no haze, no fuzz, no woodiness. These just get the hellouttoftheway and show you the circuit and the music. It took MONTHS (maybe even a year) for these caps to truly clarify 100%, but these MC30s are now what I call "my SET", as blasphemous as that may sound it is true here in this household. These are like fine wine - better with time.

Did the same with my VRDs (Cardas caps in this case) and am enjoying the increased transparency and clarity here as well.

Then of course I have a second set of MC-30s, but these are built to sound "vintage" - using russian PIO to give them the intentional "classic" flavor that sound like vintage amps.

I'm thorougly pleased with what I've put together here and won't be parting with any of it, but always figure that if I get bored and need something else to play with in this hobby it would be SET. While SET isn't my FIRST choice for amplification, I have tried to apply some of the "good" I see in SET to my other builds I have had done here. That goal/direction/imitation has been good for my systems overall, and reinforces the recommendation to "keep it simple and use high quality parts". So while I am not a SET user, I have most certainly "borrowed" what I have learned from my experiences with single ended gear and applied some of those desired goals to my systems.