2. amps-preamps
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300b lovers

I have been an owner of Don Sachs gear since he began, and he modified all my HK Citation gear before he came out with his own creations.  I bought a Willsenton 300b integrated amp and was smitten with the sound of it, inexpensive as it is.  Don told me that he was designing a 300b amp with the legendary Lynn Olson and lo and behold, I got one of his early pair of pre-production mono-blocks recently, driving Spatial Audio M5 Triode Masters.  

Now with a week on the amp, I am eager to say that these 300b amps are simply sensational, creating a sound that brings the musicians right into my listening room with a palpable presence.  They create the most open vidid presentation to the music -- they are neither warm nor cool, just uncannily true to the source of the music.  They replace his excellent Kootai KT88 which I was dubious about being bettered by anything, but these amps are just outstanding.  Don is nearing production of a successor to his highly regard DS2 preamp, which also will have a  unique circuitry to mate with his 300b monos via XLR connections.  Don explained the sonic benefits of this design and it went over my head, but clearly these designs are well though out.. my ears confirm it. 

I have been an audiophile for nearly 50 years having had a boatload of electronics during that time, but I personally have never heard such a realistic presentation to my music as I am hearing with these 300b monos in my system.  300b tubes lend themselves to realistic music reproduction as my Willsenton 300b integrated amps informed me, but Don's 300b amps are in a entirely different realm.  Of course, 300b amps favor efficient speakers so carefully component matching is paramount.

Don is working out a business arrangement to have his electronics built by an American audio firm so they will soon be more widely available to the public.  Don will be attending the Seattle Audio Show in June in the Spatial Audio room where the speakers will be driven by his 300b monos and his preamp, with digital conversion with the outstanding Lampizator Pacific tube DAC.  I will be there to hear what I expect to be an outstanding sonic presentation.  

To allay any questions about the cost of Don's 300b mono, I do not have an answer. 

 

 

whitestix
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,238 posts
 

@whitestix 

A friend has owned the Cube Audio Nenuphars for over 4 years and simply loves them. They’ve taken full range single driver speakers to a very high standard of performance.

Charles 

lynn_olson's avatar
lynn_olson
278 posts
 

At the expense of a small technical quibble, I don’t see Class D as entirely analog. Without the pulse-width modulator, it is a 100~500 kHz AM transmitter that transmits a silent carrier. The pulse-width modulator is what makes the whole thing possible ... the pulse widths are precisely (and I mean very precisely, down to parts per million) 50% positive and 50% negative, if the input is zero.

Deviations from exactly 50/50 alter the pulse widths (to 51%/49% or any other ratio) but the pulses themselves are rail-to-rail, and the output devices are purely switches. It is a modulation system like AM or FM, which are also analog, but it is a modulation system nonetheless. Without the PWM modulator, there is no signal that can get through the amplifier.

Class D has been around commercially since the early Seventies. The trick is extremely fast switching with no overhang, resistance to load reactance, and a (very) low-distortion modulator. An FM transmission chain that achieves less than 0.1% distortion is at the limit of the art, and PWM modulators inevitably have their own set of distortions. PWM is not inherently distortionless, any more than AM or FM. Yes, it can be transmitted, but it would be very sensitive to multipath and group-delay errors ... both would cause distortion. With both FM and PWM, small time errors translate into amplitude distortion after demodulation.

Interestingly, SACD/DSD, at the native 2.8 MHz switching rate, is a type of quantized PWM. Since the pulses of true PWM are variable width, they cannot be recorded on digital media. DSD uses dither encoding and digital feedback (noise shaping) to quantize the PWM pulse train into fixed widths and provide the closest approximation to true PWM on playback.

lynn_olson's avatar
lynn_olson
278 posts
 

Show Update: Don, myself, and Spatial team will be at the Seattle show. What you will see and hear will be pre-production prototypes, sonically close to what we plan to manufacture. I can tell you neither Don, nor I, will tolerate any backward steps in sonics. I’ve lived with original Karna amps since 2003, and they remain my personal reference standard. The production amps must match or exceed that standard.

Prices, and names, are still up in the air. I call the preamp the Raven, and the amps Karna Mk II’s, or Blackbird, depending on my mood. Don calls them the Statement 300B’s. Spatial will probably come up with own names for the preamp/amp combo. Don and I are encouraging people to buy the set, but they are flexible enough to interface with industry-standard components.

ricevs
1,517 posts
 

Whitestix,

What the heck is a VTV EVO 1200 class D amp with Purifi modules?  Never heard of such an animal....he he.  You must have your nomenclature confused.  What VTV product did you REALLY have?  Yes, I mod the VTV amps (Purifi, VTV D300 digital amp and Ncore Nilai).....so am very familiar with all the types and possibilities.  Maybe I modded yours......but it was not an EVO 1200.....he he......it don't exist. 

Sounds like that 300B amp is killer......me...enjoying the heck out of my modded VTV D300 amp pure digital amp......no DAC, no normal analog stages.....just....very pure sound.

snapsc
666 posts
 

Well, I read the Quanta article and I’m not sure if I enjoy my home audio set up or if I’m just imagining I enjoy it… but maybe the reality is that it would be better either way if I had the new amp and preamp??

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