SET vs OTL

Larryi, I should have mentioned that I agree with you that even with the flaws of the AN-e's they are just so musical and emotionally involving that I cant imagine selling them, ever. I've had them for four years and even when I hear systems or speakers that sound better than what I have, I am almost never tempted to upgrade. The 300b is a warm tube but its got some power and in my room and system some slam and good extension in the low and high frequencies.

I would say that a well designed SET 2A3/300B  has the warm sound than also well designed an OTL having the same output wattage.

The one thing that I might add is that 300b tubes can sound very different depending on design and manufacturer. Some 300b tubes sound much more linear than others. Conversely, my experience with different 2a3  tubes (while admitedly more limited than my experience with many different 300b) suggests that they are more alike than different.

It's hard to argue in words and win the war,what we need is to A-B these things  side by side and I hope somebody will initiate  a fest for audio fanatics  into reality. 

I would say that a well designed SET 2A3/300B  has the warm sound than also well designed an OTL having the same output wattage.

There really aren't any OTLs that make the 2-7 watts as suggested by the above post. OTLs become less practical at lower power levels- driving the real world impedances that one might do with a transformer-coupled amp gets harder. That is one reason OTLs tend to have a lot more power than SETs, and is why our smallest amp makes 30 watts into an 8 ohm load. To make the amp much smaller than that becomes impractical.

However I have found that the OTLs tend to make less of what I have come to call 'loudness cues', IOW higher ordered harmonic distortions (which show up in most SETs when driven over about 20-25% of full power). The result is that the OTL won't sound as loud (even though it is probably louder) and so invites you to use the power it has. This can be done comfortably. The reason SETs sound so dynamic is due to distortion and how that interacts with the ear, not actual volume!