Home Propeller Head Plaza

Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics.

[ Follow Ups ] Thread: [ Display  All  Email ] [ Propeller Head Plaza ]
[ Alert Moderator ]

Why SETs?

Why SET's

As everyone most likely knows here I own an SET. IMHO it is capable of replicating the closest sound to live music I've ever heard. In the past I've owned some very nice solid state amplifiers. I began with a CM Labs amp (I don't remember the model) I traded that for a Harmon Kardon Citation 16, I traded that for a pair of Mark Levinson ML-2's. Unfortunately I got divorced and had to sell my system. When I rebuilt it I bought a David Belles designed OCM 200. All this time I felt something was missing from the music. In searching for what that elusive "missing" thing was I continued on upgrading. All that stopped when I bought my Mastersound Reference 845 integrated SET. Since purchasing that amp over 4 years ago I haven't once considered upgrading. YES! It really is that good.

Many proponents of solid state amps would be shocked by how good a single ended tube amplifier can sound when paired with the appropriate speaker. It can sound more like live music than you've probably ever heard before. Yet at the same time it can exhibit very high distortion and low output power on the test bench as oppposed to a solid state amp. That idea has really puzzled me for quite some time now.

When solid state proponents say that I enjoy listening to highly distorted or heavily colored sound, it just doesn't seem to be what I'm hearing! Not to mentiuon there are some highly respected people who have good ears and years of live music exposure. So there must be some very good reasons for this apparent paradox. I'd like to propose there are indeed some very good reasons for why this paradox exists. These reasons are explained in an article I read written by Eduardo B. E. de Lima which can be read at the link provided. It's a bit long, but it's a great arguemnt for why SETs can provide a very clean i.e. undistorted music signal that's backed with math, and explains better than I ever could why one could get the results I seem to get from my Mastersound.

Thetubeguy1954


This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Schiit Audio  

Topic - Why SETs? - thetubeguy1954 11:24:19 12/19/06 (143)
You can not post to an archived thread.

[ Top Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]