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Help with decision PP vs SET....pros & cons?


ChrisK

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William Carlos Williams... And that is a GREAT poem. I used to love poetry and my wife did her Masters Thesis on Elizabeth Bishop and the idea of exile. But I cant stand any preciousness in poetry. Poetry is about the easist art form to bring mediocrity

William Carlos Williams' To Elsie is a perfect example of poetry that is NOT precious. An excellent find.

kh

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Very interesting ... Again, another place that is fairly new to me despite my minimal efforts that merely checked boxes during a classical education.

"Preciousness" in poetry is something I can understand ... If I had read poetry like yours above perhaps I might have been more interested :) Of course, getting a 16 year old with raging hormones to REALLY read poetry is a black art.

My grandfather, God rest his soul, was a great man in my eyes ... He went to Amherst College before enlisting in the Royal Canadian Airforce for WWI. His English teacher there was Robert Frost. As a tyke, I would sit in his lap, listen to music through his McIntosh tube amps (I still remember the SMELL of hot tubes), and he'd recite Frost poetry extemporaneously.

At his funeral in the early '80's, my sister, the most liberally educated of us all, read Frost poetry selections that were just PERFECT.

I always thought his work walked the line between "precious" and "insightful" very well. Not too many could pull it off.

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I have to agree with Allan on this one. When I purchased my Khorns about a year ago the original owner had them hooked up to a McIntosh MC240 using 6L6 tubes. His entire setup was McIntosh including the preamp, which I think was a C22, and his CD player as well. After inserting my demo cd and pressing play on the player I was greeted with the most glorious soundstage ever to fall on my ears.

Since then I have mainly used my Eico HF-81 with the Khorns; however, I recently had a friend stop by from Austin with his Laurel IIX 300B's and an AE-3 DJH preamp. Upon hooking up the Laurels and the AE-3 I was expecting to hear the sound of the Gods based on many of the reviews I have soaked in here. For some reason, probably the tubes, I just wasn't overwhelmingly impressed. The midrange did sound excellent but the setup lacked the bass I crave for and have become accustomed to since tapping my vein with the HF-81.

So for my $.02, which probably isn't worth much due to my lack of knowledge in the realm of audiophileness, I lean more towards the sound of PP than SET. Then again this is all coming from a single audition of both.

Now I find myself in the ever elusive search for an MC240 at an affordable price. Wait...that might be an oxymoron.

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Not really a fair assessment to make given the circumstances, this relating to the audition. When you hear something that is dramatically different like this, especially when it conflicts with a good many opinions from people who's ears you might trust, you need to be a bit circumspect.

I still think the 2A3 is better than the 300B on the whole. In your case, you dont want to jump to conclusions based on this one audition, this talking about a whole genre.

Remember, there are A LOT of things at play when you make system changes like that. It takes a while to learn to hone in on exactly what is at play.

I have never been a huge fan of the McIntosh gear but if getting it, I dont know if the 240 is the one I would choose. Hell, I think Allan might have an old 240 for in his stash. The 240 has solid state rectifiers. Shot for a MAC with tube rectification if you can. To get those things to really sing, I would imagine you need VERY good NOS. I just have never heard MAC with top notch tubes needed. I would like to hear a pair of MC-30 these days.

kh

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Kelly,

I couldn't agree with you more. It really isn't a "fair" assessment because of my lack of experience. I just had to give the nod to the 6L6 tube because it impressed me greatly.

Still though I would have to say the PP is probably my cup of tea more so than a good SET amp, especially for my listening tastes and desire for warm, fuzzy, thumping bass. Who knows...maybe I'll discover a SET option in the future that will bring satisfaction.

Ryan

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  • 12 years later...

As far as SET amps go -- they are all not created equally, and the quality of the transformers become critical.

Because of my love for some higher than normal SPL's at times, I dealt with the headroom issue by going with high current SET. In their original configuration, my amps are capable of 18 wpc. However, I run them in 4 ohms, and so get a whopping 9 wpc with my RF-7's. I have no trouble clearing the kids and wife out of the room when I want to.

 

Apollos_2.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

The depth of Dean's experience never ceases to surprise me.  Dean sure would be qualified to speak about SET given that he owned a pair of Welborne Labs Apollo SET amps.  B)  :emotion-21:  :emotion-29:

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