I have a Luxman CL-38 & Luxman MA-88 KT88 monoblock set. Likely one of the best Williamson amplifiers ever made. The sound it gives is much like my McIntosh MHA150. Giving all the details with slightly less crispness and but trading it in with needed warmth.
My former el84 Luxman sq-n100 sounded very much the same with one exception. When plugging in Sennheiser 650's there was a very narrow range on the volume dial where everything would turn liquid. Not what I would consider "warmth" in any way as it became more transparent, velvety smooth, with no loss of details. Obviously artificial and musical lies but much better than the truth.
What design or tube should I be chasing more for this pleasurable lie? SET, PP, more iron in the signal path? The only time I read someone stating a similar result they turned the bias up so high it might have red plated. Most times I read of SET's it's a gooey warm of 2nd harmonics, not liquid transparency.
My former el84 Luxman sq-n100 sounded very much the same with one exception. When plugging in Sennheiser 650's there was a very narrow range on the volume dial where everything would turn liquid. Not what I would consider "warmth" in any way as it became more transparent, velvety smooth, with no loss of details. Obviously artificial and musical lies but much better than the truth.
What design or tube should I be chasing more for this pleasurable lie? SET, PP, more iron in the signal path? The only time I read someone stating a similar result they turned the bias up so high it might have red plated. Most times I read of SET's it's a gooey warm of 2nd harmonics, not liquid transparency.
Your question is like: What car engine will give the best ride?
Please understand, there are far more parts of an amp that gives you the feeling of a good or bad experience.
The tubes are one thing, the competence of the design and the designer another thing, and at last, the budget for the gear is important.
Of all those tens of thousands amp designe, you can essence only some to be called great designs. Most others are compromises, failed designs or just lower consumer grade level amps.
So we know, only the best can give you that liquid, transparency feeling.
And at last, you have to operate the amp with the right gear, say input and output levels and impedances should match. Not easy today to find such a match for optimum performance.
In the end, if the design is good, doesn't matter much if its SET, SEP, PP or whatever, it should just match your speakers well.
And good speakers are always high efficiency and simple ones.
Please understand, there are far more parts of an amp that gives you the feeling of a good or bad experience.
The tubes are one thing, the competence of the design and the designer another thing, and at last, the budget for the gear is important.
Of all those tens of thousands amp designe, you can essence only some to be called great designs. Most others are compromises, failed designs or just lower consumer grade level amps.
So we know, only the best can give you that liquid, transparency feeling.
And at last, you have to operate the amp with the right gear, say input and output levels and impedances should match. Not easy today to find such a match for optimum performance.
In the end, if the design is good, doesn't matter much if its SET, SEP, PP or whatever, it should just match your speakers well.
And good speakers are always high efficiency and simple ones.
Well I have Plitron 3050SE output transformers for single ended amplifiers. I got these very expensive transformers on $200 pair blowout pricing.
I was considering the Marantz 8B, Citation V, 300B driving a 845 with an interstage transformer, or Tubelab's DIY 300B SE. I was just trying to save some money and target the most likely to satisfy.
My el84 Luxman was Murado (Mullard?) type circuit and the other is Williamson. I assume the Citation V & Marantz 8B will be more of the same.
As I have never heard a SET will a 300B driving an 845 with an interstage transformer give the best of both worlds? I read that the 300B is a bit showy while the 845 is more truthful. Will the 300B's sonics show through when used as the driver or will the output tube dominate?
I was considering the Marantz 8B, Citation V, 300B driving a 845 with an interstage transformer, or Tubelab's DIY 300B SE. I was just trying to save some money and target the most likely to satisfy.
My el84 Luxman was Murado (Mullard?) type circuit and the other is Williamson. I assume the Citation V & Marantz 8B will be more of the same.
As I have never heard a SET will a 300B driving an 845 with an interstage transformer give the best of both worlds? I read that the 300B is a bit showy while the 845 is more truthful. Will the 300B's sonics show through when used as the driver or will the output tube dominate?
I think this comes down to - music source, power supply, topology and tubes and the output (transformer speakers etc).
If you design the amp for a specific tube you’re trying bring each tube to it’s best and that best selected for the best topology.
No free lunches as I’ve been finding out.
I do have an idea... 12bh7a -> ecc99s -> 2a3.
The focus is detail. However that doesn’t say anything if the topology isn’t good.. that doesn’t mean anything if the higher current tubes are starved or unable to pull current. And if I have the wrong value grid resistors.. the sound will loose detail and sound muddy.
And what about power noise?
If you design the amp for a specific tube you’re trying bring each tube to it’s best and that best selected for the best topology.
No free lunches as I’ve been finding out.
I do have an idea... 12bh7a -> ecc99s -> 2a3.
The focus is detail. However that doesn’t say anything if the topology isn’t good.. that doesn’t mean anything if the higher current tubes are starved or unable to pull current. And if I have the wrong value grid resistors.. the sound will loose detail and sound muddy.
And what about power noise?
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I go to live performances often and I'm looking for 5% thd hearing aids because I don't like the real sound.
The sound mostly depends on the speakers & their enclosures, the listening space & program material, as long as the amplifier is operating properly. A good glass of wine might help. A joint, anyone?🙂
Agree. I believe correct placements of recording studio or concert venue microphones makes the sound better than when you hear the same thing sitting in the audience. Once I listened to live brass band standing right next to it - it was so vibrant and exciting! 20 steps away, and the excitement was gone.
Yes, well-done recordings often sound better than live performances. I don't think though that it has anything to do with distortion.
I'm going to refrain from commenting on what "liquid transparent sound" means, because that's going to mean something different to everyone. As I think about all the amps I've played with (many tube and many SS amps alike), the amp that comes to mind with that term is an Omniphonics solid-state amp, which tends to be a "darker" sounding amplifier- but there are a lot of very good reasons why I would not recommend one.
FWIW, the exact design of the output transformers themselves, the specific layout, and a whole bunch of tiny details will have a much bigger impact on the performance of the amplifier than will the choice of tubes. That's if we're excluding SE designs, which will almost always have very poor distortion performance.
If I were to try to build the best-sounding tube amplifier I could at any power level, I'd do a 6BQ5 push-pull using Dynaco Z565 output transformers, a pentode voltage amplifier and a triode concertina phase splitter, taking the time to design and build it properly, of course. Now, this sort of thing might get 17 watts on a good day. Some speakers will take this really well. On the other hand, if you're like me, most of your speakers aren't real tube-amp friendly, so what I'd typically prefer to do on punishing loads like the Elacs is to run tubes on the tweeters (this really seems to make the AMT in the Elacs more enjoyable), then run an amplifier with a decent damping factor on the woofers. Some woofers (the Volt woofers in the Questeds fall under this category) don't respond well to the relatively high output impedance on a tube amp.
I've got a single channel of the above mentioned 6BQ5 amplifier (at some point I'll build a second). It's the best amp I've heard to date for highs, beating both of the 6L6 based amps I built and the MC2 that I use as a reference amplifier. I'm not sure it's more accurate, but it's way more pleasurable to listen to.
FWIW, the exact design of the output transformers themselves, the specific layout, and a whole bunch of tiny details will have a much bigger impact on the performance of the amplifier than will the choice of tubes. That's if we're excluding SE designs, which will almost always have very poor distortion performance.
If I were to try to build the best-sounding tube amplifier I could at any power level, I'd do a 6BQ5 push-pull using Dynaco Z565 output transformers, a pentode voltage amplifier and a triode concertina phase splitter, taking the time to design and build it properly, of course. Now, this sort of thing might get 17 watts on a good day. Some speakers will take this really well. On the other hand, if you're like me, most of your speakers aren't real tube-amp friendly, so what I'd typically prefer to do on punishing loads like the Elacs is to run tubes on the tweeters (this really seems to make the AMT in the Elacs more enjoyable), then run an amplifier with a decent damping factor on the woofers. Some woofers (the Volt woofers in the Questeds fall under this category) don't respond well to the relatively high output impedance on a tube amp.
I've got a single channel of the above mentioned 6BQ5 amplifier (at some point I'll build a second). It's the best amp I've heard to date for highs, beating both of the 6L6 based amps I built and the MC2 that I use as a reference amplifier. I'm not sure it's more accurate, but it's way more pleasurable to listen to.
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