SET the best?

Now I switch between the two systems. They both sound awesome. They both have compromises. But they both have synergies and areas where their performance excels. Neither is perfect. The destination should be contentment, not perfection. Everything matters and there’s always something better out there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Well I can’t subscribe to everything you just said. As I hear the 2 designs, I much prefer SET amplification. Now its true I’ve only heard 1 SET amp and several PP amps. Buts it my firm belief SET delivers almost all the bass ofa PP amp, superior midrange and almost same level of highs as a PP amp. Thus SET’s offer superior nuances and make fora finer musical experience. Seems IMHO PP amps **push and pull** the music. = a bit more aggressive sound. Attacks. SETs never ever attach, More relax, refined, laid back, more natural, neutral, linear. Significant number of numances superior = SETs offer a superior musical soundstage. And with the new FR drivers out past few years, big PP amps are not needed any longer. They served their purpose as we all know audiophiles for decades now have been enomoraed with big box xover types, highly IN-efficient thus rendering the need for big muscular PP amps. My plan is to own a good SET amp one day, and us my Defy7 as a 2nd amp, backup of sorts, But never as Principle Amplifier. Jadis now takes 2nd place. Jadis catered to the audiophile community that wanted pure big bad power for their low sens speakers, Jadis delivered the goods.

But in another 10 years, big PP amps, eh, dime a dozen. Used market will be flooded with PP amps. Dime a dozen. Give away prices. In 20 years it will be all SET. SETs are a superior amplifier is so many ways. Jadis will not be able to compete with china SET made amplifiers. At that time. Jadis is going in the wrong direction with their new KT150 and KT170 designs.

You could not give me a jadis KT170 amp. I alrady have their Defy7, why would I need yet another PP amplifier = all PP sound basically the same. El34/KT88/KT120/KT150/KT170, nuances of dif.

SETs offer a  greater nuanced  realm of musical experience.

SET. Amps are great holographic midrange especially 300 B but are softer at the extremes , 845 I feel has more drive

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You know I was *set** on getting the 845 with 300B as drive tubes,, Pehaps I should consider a 300B SET before making final decision. My tech says the 300B tube was made for the tele industry and so big roll off at both ends of the band widths. I’m going to take this up in discussion with tech today.

sure glad we revived this discussion,. 

I'm going ~~~300B~~~. 

845's too heavy and out my budget. 

If anyone has a  300B they are not using, please contact me, Budget is 2G;'s

If you are considering parallel SET, be aware of the issue of one tube in a channel pair becoming much stronger than the other such that, in short order, you lose the full power capability of such amps.  Even when one starts with supposedly matched pairs, they tend to quickly become unmatched.  I've had this happen in my Audio Note Kageki, and others running parallel SETs have noted this issue too.  

I have my doubts about any "cheap" 845 amp.  Many really don't run the specified plate voltage for that tube, and the ones that do, would have to be properly built to be safe to operate, and that means higher cost.   The same would apply to 211 and other higher powered SET tubes.  

I hope the $2,000 budget for a 300B amp is the budget for something used, and is not the budget including the output tubes, because decent 300b tube would eat up a very significant part of that budget.  That would leave not much for other parts, particularly the output transformer which is not cheap in a SET amplifier.  If you can build your own gear, the 300b kit offered by Elekit sounds decent and is quite inexpensive for what one gets.  But, I still have my doubts about "budget" SET vs. the many inexpensive vintage pushpull amps that are available.  There is no inherent superiority of any particular design, and a good pushpull transformer amp and pushpull OTL amp can be the right choice to deliver the goods.