The 'Mysteries' of SET Amplifiers Exposed!

[davidtwotrees]

Thanks, ski2x, for this nice little sojourn. I don't suppose I'll ever own a SET amp, but it was an interesting read with a cuppa coffee on a grey winter's morning here in Chicago............and to get Dr. Mark posting is always a good thing. The picture of his boyhood amp is priceless, as is his objectivism.
The first time I read one of TLS guy's posts, I pm'ed him to tell him in no uncertain terms that he was a true audio "Maestro". He has reinforced that sentiment a hundred times over. And inviting posters to visit his home, and to share his lore, as well as inviting people to fish and boat................well, that is quality, 100% quality. Nice thread!

 

[ski2xblack]

Dr. Mark, if and when you restore yours, it would be an interesting comparison to say a modern SET, perhaps including an inexpensive one like the Decware in the article as well as examples of the pricey models like a multi-kilobuck 300B type.

Talk about exposing the mysteries! It could reveal if the more recent triode revival guys are blowing smoke or have actually made improvements. Maybe it would be something even the die hard members at Audioholics would enjoy.

 

[TLS Guy]

Dr. Mark, if and when you restore yours, it would be an interesting comparison to say a modern SET, perhaps including an inexpensive one like the Decware in the article as well as examples of the pricey models like a multi-kilobuck 300B type.

Talk about exposing the mysteries! It could reveal if the more recent triode revival guys are blowing smoke or have actually made improvements. Maybe it would be something even the die hard members at Audioholics would enjoy.

I don't have the SET. The amp I have is the 10/10 which is dual push pull.

Even at 8 years of age, I found the limitation of a SET very fast. The improvement on going to push pull was night and day. At that time I built a Voight quarter wave pipe with WB Stentorian cloth coned speaker, that a friend of ours had. He was speaker builder and could not get results with that driver. I bought an elliptical Elac unit and put it on an open baffle and used a second order crossover and it was better. Those were my neophyte years.

 

[Whitey80]

Having just had Ski2xBlack come over, along with his pair of SETs, I have to say I was impressed with them.

An engineer can sit down with an analyzer and pour over physics all day long...but, in the end, when I come home, I want to listen to something that sounds pleasing to me, and running on these KEFs of mine, they did exactly that.

A nice full sound, even running at 3 watts or whatever they are per channel. Little lost on the low-end with my speakers, but still very smooth on the ear through quite a number of different music styles that we listened to over the course of a couple of hours.

Nowhere near the output of my class A's, but I can't fault the SETs from what I heard.

You can't always get lost in the numbers and math, sometimes listening to music should be the same as creating it, an experience of sound and feeling.