Looking To Match A Tube Amp With A Pair Of Audio Note AN-K/Spe

@larryi … Unfortunately So, unless one goes OTL with say one of Ralph’s superb amplifiers the Quality of Iron is King   

Some great discussion here @rooze @larryi and @tsushima1 I have also heard that Synthesis A40 actually driving the exact same speakers I own AN-J/lx's really lovely sounding and such a good value.  I've not ever owned a 6l6 amp but have always been curious so many folks I know with good ears love them, I also love the KT77 tube as a replacement for the EL34.

That Sansui amp looks great and I'm sure it sounds fantastic I'm guessing if you could find one it would be serious $$$.  And yes iron is king I've been lucky to have bback to back amps using vintage trannies first Accrosound and now Eico and love  that sound.

I built a 6FW5 pp about ten years back using Sansui 1000A pulls for OPTs. Sounded very nice for vintage iron. Hashimoto does build good transformers.

Iron is indeed the king with tube gear, for both pushpull and single-ended amps.  There is hardly anything new and novel in tube design, so most of it comes down to  parts quality, build quality and voicing by the designer. 

You are entirely correct; there is very little novel in the area of tube design (unless you count ss assist). Most ’designers’ simply optimise component values for their particular application of a certain pre-documented circuit, or at the most give it a mild tweak - and sometimes they don’t even get that right. Ironically. some recent ’advances’ have have occured due to the re- examination of long forgotten texts.

There have been, and are very few true innovators coming up with novel ideas and making advances in the field. And I certainly don’t count myself among them.