SET Asylum Single Ended Triodes (SETs), the ultimate tube lovers dream.

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If "BS" = "By golly, he'S right...

Posted by shane versteeg on January 20, 2001 at 09:17:14

In Reply to: Re:BS ALERT!!! posted by Mark (S-D) on January 18, 2001 at 20:57:34:

OK. Otherwise:

1. I don't BS. Thats why I write on these asylum thingies - I write what I know to be true. I have said a couple of times already, I have listened to a lot of audio, and nothing I have heard makes music more fun than SETs and horns. And because it is ME who is saying it, it is an opinion. I do not need to add IMHO to anything I already wrote, since the people who know me already think I am humble. But here, it is about honesty. I am not going to pretend that "it doesn't matter" if I think it matters. And since I am writing this and no one is trying to get me off this asylum (because I am not causing an uproar or calling names or anything - just stating things I feel strongly about), I will continue to write as thoughtfully and honestly as I possibly can. BS, I don't think so.

2. I don't know what you are thinking when you go on about me not explaining or describing what I think makes a great hifi, or as we have started to use the word, "magic" so freaquently. You mention that some people think stereos ought to do this and that, and that you think "tone" is the most important thing. You mention that "magic" is different from one person to another. This is what I termed MY "magic" to mean:

> The reasons why I like the SET topology so much is not because of > holography or audiophile tricks - it is simply the purity of this > note and that note. It is the bite of the string. The blat! of the > horn. The bomp of the beat. The silence. And I am not just talking > about chamber music (although, this is about 1/2 of what I listen > to), I am talking about real pulsing realism - the subtle and huge > changes of direction that music often takes and the natural flow > that human and instrument create together. When I talk about SETs > and high efficient/high impedance (among other things), I am talking > about ENERGY that is found nowhere else.

Horns do this - and otherwise the system just "sounds good." Yep - this is my opinion. And I don't need to appologise for this, and I am being as honest as I possibly dare.

Read more carefully before you staple "BS" to anything that I write.

3. Mark writes: "Perhaps Vince has already tried the "recommended amp" and likes his SET amps better?"

I am not trying to persuade our friend to get into or choose one amp over the other - I am trying to do so with speakers.

4. I don't sell audio. I do not sell horns or design them or rely on the esteem of them to ba able to feel good about life or to earn a good living. I have nothing to do with this stuff. I just buy it every once in a while and use it to listen to records and cds. I am not a guru. I don't sit around with my Talmudim and act wise and all-knowing about the audio arts.

I am learning and will always be learning about what makes music MUSIC from black boxes and wires and speakers - and I have fun at it. Some things that I have learned are no-brainers (like the difference between SETs/horns and SETs/Maggies [or similar speakers]). Some things are not written in stone and are free to roam about (like the funny little Rega kytes that I have - they are a blast on a big Naim amp as well as a little Audio Note pentode SE amp). Some things have not been charted (like SACD and Sakuma-style interstage transformer mono amps driving a single horn).

Don't act so suprised and offended when someone like me, just a guy who listens to music for fun most of his free time, talks about something that most certainly will make a good experience into a gobsmackingly beautiful musical experience by changing from Maggies (which are wonderful in their own right) to any number of the horn designs that are floating around on Ebay or Audiogon at the moment.

No need to be humble about that, my friend.

What is opinion to me is FACT to me. Why would I speak of it otherwise?

Shane

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