Decware Sarah 300B Amp?

I love my 300b but unless you have speakers that are very easy to drive they don’t always make sense.   
 

I am always swapping gear around but I can really only use two pair of speakers with that amp, my Forte IV and Omega Super Alnicos.    My Sonus Faber Concerto were a horrible match.  Lifeless. Ran out of steam fast.   
 

It’s really important that you have or plan on always having high efficiency speakers if you are looking at 300b.  They distort early on so if it’s not living in its sweet spot of one or two watts you are making it work too hard and that will be hard on your ears.   

For what it is worth. I got the 300B bug a few years ago. After hearing about them for so long. I also had a pretty good headphone system. I had the bright idea that since 300B systems tend to be lower power and that it would be a great match would be on my headphone system. Then if I liked what I heard I could see where to go from there. Wow, that worked really well.

My headphone system got two enormous boosts in sound quality all at once, from the realism of the 300B and a huge boost in power / current. I now listen to my headphone system all the time. It has jumped an order of magnitude in satisfying sound quality. It also, started a complete revamping of my main system to tubes… but not 300B… higher powered ones. So I get the best of both worlds in my main system.

The tube headphone amp I bought was a Woo WA5. It can be a tube headphone amp or an integrated amp powering speakers. Woo amps are simply fantastic and this is my third. I highly recommend it. You might consider a more tangential strategy, it worked for me anyway.

I’m a Decware fan boy.  But, waiting that long for any of their equipment is just too much.  I wanted a 300b and ordered a custom made from Min Yang at Tube Audio Labs.  He allowed me to specify transformers, caps and even silver wiring.  It really is a very well built unit but is more expensive than Decware.

Bluethinker,

I have never heard the Sarah amp, so I will not offer any personal impressions; and by all accounts they are excellent. I too have heard about the parts quality they use, and at $4,500 without tubes.....they are about the same cost of many other 300B amps.

I will echo what several have already said, give a call to Aric Kimball at Aric Audio and have a discussion with him. He personally responds to all phone calls and emails, and makes ridiculously great equipment. I own his Motherlode XL preamplifier, and his Transcend "Push Pull" amplifier. The quality of parts he uses are second to none (Khozmo, Clarity/Jupiter/Dueland capacitors, wire wound resistors,Takman resistors, custom Transcendar transformers, point to point wiring, copper lined chassis, and hand made in the USA, and 2 yeare warranty)

Aric makes 2 300B amps, as well as a 2A3 SET amp. I do not want to sound like an advertisement, but his equipment is extraordinary.....and that is from personal experience in my system. When I eventually do end up buying a SET amp, it will definitely be one of Aric's designs.

The Don Sachs and Lynn Olson Blackbird 300B monoblocks also look to be "end game", but have never heard them......and at $20,000 a pair, are cost no object projects.

Bluethinker,

Aric also has a lead time of a couple of months, not 3 years.