Which 300b amplifier for Devore O/96

Thanks everyone for your thoughtful inputs.

After reading @almarg @atmasphere and @jsautter I put my 300b Coincidents back on and played some music with a with great dynamic range. This song goes from 66dB to 98dB in 10 minutes and back down.
I thought my 8W amp was able to handle it quite well without running out of steam. I put my 200W SS (class D, Lyngdorf TDAI-3400), I liked the Coincidents better and it even had as good or better bass.
Perhaps like the cliche we always hear in mags, the quality of watts not quantity matter here.

@riaa, yes I remember Matt @ Pitch Perfect Audio used Shindo Cortese with O96, and Art Dudley used the Air Tight ATM-300R on the Devore O93 (lesser sensitivity that the O96s by 3).

Hence I rounded up these set of 300b amps as my final list.

Maybe they sound even better with PP tube amps, I have not tried that combo yet, so I will take that into account.

In the coming weeks I will try to get a home demo of the Nagra 300b and compare them with my Coincident 300b that should conclusively tell me if I need more watts.

@pah, wow! The Kondo Overture was in my shortlist as well. You are making me want to put it in the running as well.

@cal3713 , yes will keep this thread posted as developments occur. Think our journeys are quite similar.

@shkong78, I was considering getting Takatsuki 300b tubes, I heard with the Coincident Franks they are sublime. WE 300b for $6000 are simply insane, I won't even go there.

@essrand Thanks for providing the update. Assuming a listening distance of say 10 or 12 feet, and a medium sized room, and given that the speakers are not planars or line sources, and factoring in a few db of "room gain," according to my calculations the 8 watts that can be provided to each of the 92 db/1W/1m speakers (as indicated in my earlier post) by your Franks can produce a maximum SPL at a centered listening position of about 97 to 100 db.

So given those assumptions your findings don’t seem to me to be surprising. But given the distortion vs. power level characteristics of SETs, which Ralph (Atmasphere) has described and which from a technical standpoint make sense to me, the bottom line would seem to be that when playing recordings having the kind of dynamic range you described (about 32 db) you are not hearing the Franks at their best.

I’ll add that while a dynamic range of 32 db is no doubt a good deal greater than the dynamic range of a considerable majority of recordings among the various genres, there are some that greatly exceed that amount. I referred earlier to the wide dynamic range that can often be found on classical symphonic recordings. In a few such cases, on labels such as Sheffield Labs and Telarc, by examining waveforms of the recordings on a computer using a professional audio editing program I have found dynamic ranges of as much as 55 db! Correspondingly, at my 12 foot listening distance SPLs produced by those recordings cover a range from about 50 db to about 105 db. I would feel safe in saying that the combination of an 8 watt SET and 92 db/1W/1m speakers could not handle such recordings at reasonable average volume levels, say 75 db or so.

Just some food for thought. It has long been my belief that a major reason for the divergent opinions we often see about power requirements is differences in the dynamic range of the recordings different listeners listen to. As well, of course, as differences in individual volume preferences, listening distance, room size, etc.

Good luck, however you decide to proceed. Regards,

-- Al

If you find WE Nos 300B to be too expensive, then I recommend you try
Psavne Acme 300B.

https://www.hifi-amplifiers.com/en/psvane-acme-serie-300b-hiend-vacuum-tube-replace-we300b-matched-pair-p-5262.html

I had have sweet and natural sound with Line Magnetic 508 with Acme 300B for more than 400 hours running.

My Nos WE 300B had been running more than 10K hours with no problem.

If you account for its longevity, then it is not expensive.

The problem is that it is  hard to get good and genuine Nos 300B at reasonable price.

essrand

Well I am not surprised that you liked your 300Bs better than the Class D amps. Kind of an apples to oranges comparison. Take to heart what Ralph has said about how SETs sound when pushed. I truly believe that both P.P. and SETs are intrinsically inferior on the right speakers when compared with OTLs. Also, with respect, I couldnt disagree more with shkong78 reagrding his insistence on the influence that 300B tubes have on any SET design. In my experience the driver tubes have at least as much impact, somtimes more than the power tubes themselves. Tubes usually nudge, sometimes significantly, but they do not transform.

With SETs, the quality and specs seem to make quite a bit of difference as well.