Building the Audio Note Kit 1 SET amp...

Smctiuge1:

"Rebbi, for the sake of De Capo owners in the future looking to experiment with SET it may be beneficial to explain why this thread took the turn it has. Earlier in the thread you commented that the power issue had "been put to bed."

Good question and fair enough. I think I spoke too soon in that earlier comment. Additionally, when I said what I said, I was still entertaining the possibility that I'd messed up something in the build or perhaps gotten a bad tube. I finally figured out (with Brian's of ANK's help) that the amp was fine but that a few of my favorite tracks from a couple of albums that I've been keeping in heavy rotation would overtax the amp to distortion if I played them at accustomed volumes.

For a great deal of what I've listened to so far, the combination sounds marvelous! I know this is a threadbare cliché, but I find myself wanting to just sit and listen; it's like I'm being reintroduced to music I've been listening to for years, but in a deeper way.

And yes, the "issue has been put to bed" in the sense that if you don't listen to modern, electronic music, and your listening room is small to medium-small, and you're not a total head banger intent on ruining your hearing entirely, the De Capo / Kit 1 combo might make you very happy for a very long time. But, if any of these things doesn’t' apply to you, then I think (and my opinion on this may change over time, so "for now") that the suitability of the De Capo's with any 8.5 Watt 300B SET amp is "borderline."

It just so happens that I hit the limits of the pairing early on because I threw some pop music at them that - with "subterranean," hip-hop flavored synth bass - caused the Kit 1 to run out of steam and distort at moderate (in my judgment) volumes. It's like I got the "bad news" early on, and then discovered the good news later in spades. Does that make sense?

As I was listening to a "guilty pleasure" Michael Franks LP from the early 1980's tonight, not expecting much except that I liked the tunes and the musicianship, I was flabbergasted (truly) with what the Kit 1 did with that album. The music was involving and sounded beautiful in a way I've never heard it sound in the 22 years since I bought that LP. I kept thinking, "Oh, so THAT'S what the recording engineer had in mind!" The Kit 1 managed to extract a hidden beauty out of that record that I didn't know was there.

By the way, what PP amp did you end up pairing with the DC's?

Smctigue1:

Oh, also: have you ever heard the Omega's? I spoke to the proprietor and designer who sounds like a lovely guy. He really believes that his hemp cone drivers have eliminated the classic bad rap on single driver speakers: harsh midrange "shout" and limited bandwidth. The super alnico model is probably out of my price range but the Super 7XRS Mk2 might hit the economic sweet spot.

Mikirob:
Spoke to Eric Alexander at Tekton last week and he sounds like a really stand-up guy. His prices are unbelievably reasonable and his 60 day trial makes trying one of his speaks into a lower risk proposition. Given my amp and my room, he recommended the Lore or Lore 2.0. It's something I'm considering. He, himself, is not a huge fan of low power amps (although he owns some) but he said that lots of his customers are happily running his designs with SET's.
He opined that "Running an 8 watt SET with a 92 db speaker is like running a Ferrari with the cruise control stuck on 55 mph. You'll never really see what the amp is capable of."
He also jokes that "Amps are tools. One night you're going to want to crank The Who and then you may want to have a more powerful amp on hand." ;-)
Good guy.

Rebbi, I ended up with a Music Reference RM10 MKII. I haven't heard the Omega's but have been told that they compare very favorably to a British speaker that I love for a fraction of the cost.

Rebbi your last post says it all. The amp should be able to play all the kinds of music that YOU want to enjoy on a given day. Wether the speaker or amp changes, in the end, a better match is needed.

I recall running my Coincident speakers with three different SET amps and on many evenings the music was so enjoyable, just as you mentioned. However, over a period of months it became obvious that the amps were just plain running out of gas on more occasions than I originally thought.

The question is not about wether a DHT 300b amp sounds better or best compared to all other tube amp designs. That is not even a real question as a dozen 300b amps sound as different from each other as a dozen PP amps sound from the same dozen 300b amps. The real question is wether the system with your current speakers and a new tube amp will sound better than your current amp with new speakers. The comparison is at the total system level......not the amp alone.

I owned a very expensive Canary 300b paralell single ended set of amps. They put out 50 watts per channel, but did not sound as good as a solid state integrated in my total system. By good I mean all the SET type SQ attributes we all enjoy. How is this possible? Well easy. The design of the integrated was pure magic and the world offers a vast array of magical gear that we can never begin to consume. It is a great big audio world out there with many surprises and Magic awaiting! Certain 300b amps are but one.