300b lovers

I am not sure the of the adjective @whitestix would use to describe the amps, but "trippy" is pretty much spot on.  It is funny, because when I first wrote Lynn after building the initial stereo version with the CCS on each 6V6 plate I told him that it was so clean and clear and threw such a soundstage that it sounded like you were high every time you listened to it.  He was amused and wrote back and said that he and Karna described the sound of the first amps as "trippy".   That indeed is how they sound.  They are unlike anything I have ever heard, and with each improvement, they get "trippier".  Adding the Raven preamp with XLR connection directly to the input tube grids pushed them to new "highs" 😉 

I have an old timber frame house and the ceiling slopes upward from about 10 ft at the speakers to at least 20 ft overhead at the listening position.  So there are no ceiling reflections.  The sound stage is huge, and as I said earlier, it is akin to Omnimax theater for the ears.  Sometimes you are sitting inside the recording if that makes any sense.  Trippy indeed, and once you hear it, you just cannot unhear it and go back to some other amp.  It sort of blows the lid off of things.

The house I lived in back when I was in Portland had a ceiling like that, with a panoramic picture window overlooking the Oregon Coast Range behind the speakers. The very first PP 300B amp, the Amity, had a vast, CinemaScope soundstage. Once I heard that, no more SETs for me, nor PP pentode. All done.

That’s when I contacted Harvey Rosenberg back East and told him that interstage transformers were The Way. He never did get to hear my amps, but he got his hands on the Japanese Sun amplifiers (with ITs) and never looked back. Harvey was powering his gigantic Tannoy Westminsters, but from what he told me, the Sun amplifiers took charge of the big Tannoys. No surprise there.

IT-coupled PP DHT’s have a power and majesty unlike anything else in audio. Bell Labs and Western Electric knew what they were doing back in 1935. It probably didn’t hurt they had Leopold Stokowski as an in-house musical consultant.

@lynn_olson

IT-coupled PP DHT’s have a power and majesty unlike anything else in audio. Bell Labs and Western Electric knew what they were doing back in 1935.

A compelling point. I do believe that if implemented properly the DHT tubes are difficult to equal or surpass in terms of music reproduction purity. Nothing is perfect but they have considerable  intrinsic sonic value and ability.

Charles

Is anybody else building IT-coupled PP DHT amps these days?

Kinda' seems like these amps are going to be (justifiably) pricey when they come out.

@markusthenaimnut  I have no idea.  I think Lukasz at Lampizator was.  Yes they will be pricey because the power supply topology is something that I have not seen in any commercial amps that I haven't built, and there are custom wound transformers throughout.  So even if someone would build a similar concept, these have a lot of features that probably wouldn't be in something else.  Hence the cost.....  Again, this was essentially a cost no object (within reason) project to see what was sonically possible.  I am pleased with the outcome.  There are certainly many decent quality tube amps out there for under $5,000 including the Kootenay that I used to build.  None of them are this good though.  Doesn't mean you cannot have a really satisfying and enjoyable stereo for less.  Just that if you want this level of performance it costs this much to do correctly.