Tubegroover, Others,
The DeCapos are my brother 2nd system, usually paired with Leben CS600. Admittedly, in his system everything is fine, except the lower bass realm, yet does not best the Tekton with said Leben. The DeCapo Ref is a very nice speaker, I have said so here many times. I personally like the tone and presentation better with the Tekton. My brother's primary speaker is the Harbeth SHL5 also very good. Another thing to note as previously mentioned here is that between my brother and I, we often enough have audio shootouts at our houses with usually 6 to 10 audio buddies, their systems are all over the map. Between my brother and I we have owned or listened to many, many serious systems. Not as reviewers, but music lovers...I've even shopped at one of the stores Mapman worked at back in the 70s.
With regard to "limitations" all audio equipment/amps have limitations and must be matched synergistically with appropriate ancillaries. Monitors have limitations, usually a a lot missing below say, 55hz; Ribbons have limitations and usually require amps with over a 100 watts and high current; Electrostatics present other problems; many speakers have a Head In The Vice sweet spot; some speakers are difficult to set-up; and so on and so forth. A SET is no more problematic than anything else. Historically low-powered amps with gigantic horns filled large movie theaters with loud dynamic sound. I would argue that just because an amp is powerful does not make it a good match for many speakers, sure they'll play loud, likely dynamic; but what of the quality of sound?
Too me, like Charles, Brownsfan, Roxy, many non Westener listeners such as the Japanese, we seem to be Timbral listeners and have very specific musical requirement as outlined above where I pasted Jeff Day's blog on "Listening Bias". As a former professional musician I care for the above musical attributes. Directly heated SET matched with appropriate high efficiency speakers does it for me and I suspect legions of others. I also think speaker manufacturing took a wrong turn with 4 ohm based solely on financial considerations. I strongly believe we would all be better served with efficient, easy to drive speakers, perhaps, some rare exceptions.
The DeCapos are my brother 2nd system, usually paired with Leben CS600. Admittedly, in his system everything is fine, except the lower bass realm, yet does not best the Tekton with said Leben. The DeCapo Ref is a very nice speaker, I have said so here many times. I personally like the tone and presentation better with the Tekton. My brother's primary speaker is the Harbeth SHL5 also very good. Another thing to note as previously mentioned here is that between my brother and I, we often enough have audio shootouts at our houses with usually 6 to 10 audio buddies, their systems are all over the map. Between my brother and I we have owned or listened to many, many serious systems. Not as reviewers, but music lovers...I've even shopped at one of the stores Mapman worked at back in the 70s.
With regard to "limitations" all audio equipment/amps have limitations and must be matched synergistically with appropriate ancillaries. Monitors have limitations, usually a a lot missing below say, 55hz; Ribbons have limitations and usually require amps with over a 100 watts and high current; Electrostatics present other problems; many speakers have a Head In The Vice sweet spot; some speakers are difficult to set-up; and so on and so forth. A SET is no more problematic than anything else. Historically low-powered amps with gigantic horns filled large movie theaters with loud dynamic sound. I would argue that just because an amp is powerful does not make it a good match for many speakers, sure they'll play loud, likely dynamic; but what of the quality of sound?
Too me, like Charles, Brownsfan, Roxy, many non Westener listeners such as the Japanese, we seem to be Timbral listeners and have very specific musical requirement as outlined above where I pasted Jeff Day's blog on "Listening Bias". As a former professional musician I care for the above musical attributes. Directly heated SET matched with appropriate high efficiency speakers does it for me and I suspect legions of others. I also think speaker manufacturing took a wrong turn with 4 ohm based solely on financial considerations. I strongly believe we would all be better served with efficient, easy to drive speakers, perhaps, some rare exceptions.