Which 300B SET for SF Guarneri Homage?

Charlers1dad, We know that you like and enjoy your Frankenstein amp. What you seem to keep missing, is the point that knowing this amp well is frankly fairly irrelevant. Asking Israel about his amp is not the question, the question is how well he knows the SF GH's? Because, once again, unless anyone, including Israel, would have extensive knowledge of the pairing ( the Franks AND the GH's) then any recommendation on the pairing is pure supposition.
Could the pairing work, would the pairing work, is it likely the pairing would work...WHo knows!! What we do know is that the OP will NOT have a chance to listen to the pairing and therefore would be taking IMHO an enormous risk if it didn't, which again IMHO is HIGHLY likely. What we also know is that there are several good candidates that WILL work... Even one of Israel's own designs.

I don't have much experience with the GH (I have friends with other speakers from that manufacturer -- Anniversarios, Stardivari, Elipsa) and none of these were SET friendly. I heard the Anniversarios on a top quality pushpull 300B amp and even in pushpull configuration, the lack of bass control was very evident. I am a fan of lowpowered SET (I own an Audionote Kageki), but, these are extremely specialized items that should be used only on appropriate speakers.

The only kind of SET I would consider would be an amp using 845s or 211s because these put out significantly more power than a 300b. I have heard, and liked, the Viva Solista, though I have not heard them with Sonus Faber speakers. Another higher-powered SET that I like is the THE Wyetech amp that uses 211s (I believe it is called the Topaz).

I am also very partial to output transformerless amplifiers. These tend to be very fast and sound very lively and "present." I really like the immediacy of the OTL sound, something one can also get with certain SET amps (but only with very high efficiency speakers), but OTLs make that kind of sound available to a broader array of applications. Atmasphere makes OTLs at the 30 and 60 watt power levels that should be fine for your application. Joule makes OTLs that sound warmer than the Atmasphere models, if a warmer sound is what you want (the 300b sound is on the warmer side).

Good luck on your search.

Larryi, I think what you posted is very good advice. Generally the whole SF line is NOT really low powered/flea powered SE friendly. Like you say there are SE amps that are a better match for these speakers;however, none of them that I am aware of use a 300B tube.

As an additional note about the Frankenstein's, on his page about these, Arthur Salvatore mentions the exceptional power/volume capability of these monoblocks and hints - as possible reason - at the current delivery / 6EM7 input-driver tube.

Well folks, in the end I got the coincident frankensteins... with safety net, in case they wouldn't work. Got them yesterday so no time to burn-in but so far my conclusions are:
-gorgeous sound driving my guarneri homage (a sf gravis attached too)
-fat, rich, smooth transparent sound
-sounds good also on orchestral or rock (eg wagner's flying dutchman's or led zeppelin)
-these 8W per monoblock sound like much more power
Thanks for all your inputs!