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

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.

Considering a Decware Tori II MkV for my K's. Atmasphere's comments were influencing on this thread. Have certainly decided that a 20-40W pentode design is a good path. Keeping in mind the K's are in a 12x26 room go with KT 66, 77, or 6L6 for an "EL-84 tactile and immediate" kind of sound? Other considerations are C-J classic 62, and BAT VK-56. There's a listing on Canuck Audio Mart for a pair of Master Sound (Italy) 845 monobloc's. Another worthy consideration? -Scott

Have certainly decided that a 20-40W pentode design is a good path. Keeping in mind the K's are in a 12x26 room go with KT 66, 77, or 6L6 for an "EL-84 tactile and immediate" kind of sound?

If it were me I'd be looking for an amp with Ultra-Linear operation since UL allows the output section to have the same linearity as a triode. Or find an amp that is actually triode. Push-pull amps that are triode, even using Directly Heated Triodes do exist.

Ultra-linear is nice since the power tubes usually used are easy to find. Since you don't need all that much power a 6L6 or EL34 based amp would certainly do the job.