Recommended SET amp and speakers to 20k

Charles,

It has been a long time since I heard Odeon speakers.  At the time, I did not like the tonal qualities (coloration), but, I am now more used to, and can live with such tonal qualities.  Overall, I did like the speaker, but, not enough to buy one.  I cannot say whether I would like the system these days, given my ever evolving taste in systems.

 I own a system that uses a horn midrange, but, it does not have much of the "megaphone" or nasal quality of many other horn drivers.    

Getting hifi bandwidth out of an SET is challenging when the full power is over about 8 watts or so. Usually the bass is sacrificed so that the output transformer can make it to 20KHz.


Often that works, since the speakers that have the sort of efficiency you need sacrifice bass response for efficiency so you wouldn't hear the bass rolloff in the amp anyway.

However before pulling the trigger, you might want to audition a triode push-pull amplifier of the same power. You may find that the decreased distortion and increased bandwidth to be helpful on the resolution side, and the simple fact that a push-pull amp has less distortion means that you have a greater percentage of usable power. SETs really should not be pushed past about 20% of full power, as distortion at power levels above that in the transients of the music cause them to sound very 'dynamic'. Maybe this is me, but I prefer to hear the dynamic quality of the music, rather than distortion masquerading as 'dynamics'.

Dragon Inspire QMB-25 mono amps (made by Dennis Had) cost around 4 grand a pair new, and add whatever model of high efficiency Klipsch Heritage speakers you prefer as lately a few have been redisigned...Heresy IV, Forte III, and Cornwall IV (102db efficiency for that one). I use a little single ended allegedly wide band 12wpc Had amp with Heresy IIIs and it’s all the amp I need...except for the two powered REL subs. No audible distortion ever and it’s clean clear and powerful.

Luxman MQ-300 (on audiogon, 15k-ish) + Devore O/96 (available for around 7k on usaudiomart, grab it before it goes). Should come to around 20k. Probably will be the best SET/speaker combo in the planet. Cannot get better than this.
Have heard both of them, and some of the best SETs around when I was looking for a 300b amp, Luxman MQ-300 is out of this world.

essrand and wolf_garcia are both adamant (even passionate) in regard to their respective amplifier and speakers recommendation.  I don't doubt either of them. It would really be fun and insightful to compare these two pairings head to head. 

The Dennis Had SEP amplifier and a Klipsch speaker combo is probably less than half the cost of the Luxman MQ 300 and Devore Orangutans 96 . Would be quite interesting to see what margin of performance gap exist between (assuming  there is one).them.
Charles