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300b lovers

I have been an owner of Don Sachs gear since he began, and he modified all my HK Citation gear before he came out with his own creations.  I bought a Willsenton 300b integrated amp and was smitten with the sound of it, inexpensive as it is.  Don told me that he was designing a 300b amp with the legendary Lynn Olson and lo and behold, I got one of his early pair of pre-production mono-blocks recently, driving Spatial Audio M5 Triode Masters.  

Now with a week on the amp, I am eager to say that these 300b amps are simply sensational, creating a sound that brings the musicians right into my listening room with a palpable presence.  They create the most open vidid presentation to the music -- they are neither warm nor cool, just uncannily true to the source of the music.  They replace his excellent Kootai KT88 which I was dubious about being bettered by anything, but these amps are just outstanding.  Don is nearing production of a successor to his highly regard DS2 preamp, which also will have a  unique circuitry to mate with his 300b monos via XLR connections.  Don explained the sonic benefits of this design and it went over my head, but clearly these designs are well though out.. my ears confirm it. 

I have been an audiophile for nearly 50 years having had a boatload of electronics during that time, but I personally have never heard such a realistic presentation to my music as I am hearing with these 300b monos in my system.  300b tubes lend themselves to realistic music reproduction as my Willsenton 300b integrated amps informed me, but Don's 300b amps are in a entirely different realm.  Of course, 300b amps favor efficient speakers so carefully component matching is paramount.

Don is working out a business arrangement to have his electronics built by an American audio firm so they will soon be more widely available to the public.  Don will be attending the Seattle Audio Show in June in the Spatial Audio room where the speakers will be driven by his 300b monos and his preamp, with digital conversion with the outstanding Lampizator Pacific tube DAC.  I will be there to hear what I expect to be an outstanding sonic presentation.  

To allay any questions about the cost of Don's 300b mono, I do not have an answer. 

 

 

whitestix
gladmo's avatar
gladmo
364 posts
 

My personal award show notes from PAF, including the room with the amp in this thread:

*Most intensely rich yet detailed tubey midrange: LTA prototype DAC,  LTA Pre, LTA Ultralinear+ monoblocks, and Daedalus Argos V3 speakers

*Most delicate and intricately revealing top end with too much mid-bass: VAC components and Von Schweikert Ultra 7 speakers

*Second place for best top end and also clear midrange but garbled bass: Songer + Whammerdyne

*Most gossamer presentation: Don Sachs' Raven/Blackbird + Spatial Audio Lab X series speakers

*Largest sounding very small, yet full range speakers: Gershman

*Most humongously oversized images and stage and most impressive driver tech: Aavik/Ansus and Borreson M6

*Most resonant enclosures: Black Ocean Audio

*Most disappointing tonality: Joseph Audio Pearl Graphene speakers

*Biggest surprise: Vanatoo's little office stereo sized powered speakers

*Friendliest exhibitor reps: Tie between Furutech and ASC

*Most advantaged by vibration control: Millercarbon

*Most classic solid state sounding room: Infigo Audio

*Most inoffensive yet not all that unique sounding room: Bella Sound

lynn_olson's avatar
lynn_olson
344 posts
 

I wish I had heard the Dutch & Dutch 8C’s. The exact opposite approach of our room, but 100% valid: internally tri-amped with DSP for the side-firing drivers to create a near-perfect cardioid radiation pattern. Digital-in is limited to 48/24 PCM (higher-rez content is accepted but internally downsampled), and the triple internal amps are Class D with 400W each. I was reading Amir’s ASR show report (third section) and the Dutch & Dutch exhibitor was measuring 15 Hz during setup.

This might be anathema for some readers, but I like the massive engineering effort that must have gone into this bookshelf speaker. DSP to shape the polar response with side-firing drivers is not trivial, and from the reviews, they actually tamed the hotel rooms that were driving the rest of us nuts. Of course, with DSP tailored for each driver, the speaker would be flat as a pancake, not a bad thing.

For analog fans, the prospect of converting every precious LP on-the-fly to plain old 48/24 PCM is appalling, and for high-end DAC fans, the standard-issue ESS or AKM converters hidden inside the Dutch & Dutch are probably not acceptable. So you pick the approach that you like.

Surprisingly, Amir, of all people, liked both Spatial rooms. Did not expect that. The real invective on ASR was reserved for the absurd cables in the ballrooms ... to be honest, have to agree there. The Anticables we were using worked just fine, and were unobtrusive, as a cable should be.

thom_at_galibier_design's avatar
thom_at_galibier_design
729 posts
 

@gladmo

The takeaway from your observations (quoted below) is that no system is universal, and we all latch on to different elements of the sonic illusion. Well done!

... Thom

My personal award show notes from PAF, including the room with the amp in this thread:

*Most intensely rich yet detailed tubey midrange: LTA prototype DAC, LTA Pre, LTA Ultralinear+ monoblocks, and Daedalus Argos V3 speakers

*Most delicate and intricately revealing top end with too much mid-bass: VAC components and Von Schweikert Ultra 7 speakers

*Second place for best top end and also clear midrange but garbled bass: Songer + Whammerdyne

*Most gossamer presentation: Don Sachs’ Raven/Blackbird + Spatial Audio Lab X series speakers

*Largest sounding very small, yet full range speakers: Gershman

*Most humongously oversized images and stage and most impressive driver tech: Aavik/Ansus and Borreson M6

*Most resonant enclosures: Black Ocean Audio

*Most disappointing tonality: Joseph Audio Pearl Graphene speakers

*Biggest surprise: Vanatoo’s little office stereo sized powered speakers

*Friendliest exhibitor reps: Tie between Furutech and ASC

*Most advantaged by vibration control: Millercarbon

*Most classic solid state sounding room: Infigo Audio

*Most inoffensive yet not all that unique sounding room: Bella Sound

donsachs's avatar
donsachs
294 posts
 

@gladmo 

I will take gossamer:)   We were trying to produce sound stage in a shoe box room, but the tonality was nice, and we could get depth.

As Thom said, and I noted about a thousand pages up, there are many paths to audio nirvana, and rarely will we all agree!

 

songeraudio
4 posts
 

Wow.

I’m just seeing this thread, and I just want to take just a moment to thank everyone for spending time with us over the weekend, and for sharing these lovely comments. We loved doing the show.

@lynn_olson @donsachs Meeting you and the immense praise you’ve offered for the driver and loudspeakers... it really is indescribable. I won’t even bother attempting it here. I’m so grateful to you both.

And, your room with Team Spatial was absolutely astonishing.  Incredibly clean sound, unbelievably deep and wide soundstage, razor sharp imaging...  Between the two of us, it's hard to say which I felt was subjectively better.  

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