Would You Rather Own A Good SET Amp, Or A Great Push Pull Amp?

@Invalid - they do indeed. But if I smear vaseline on my camera lens, I think most people won't see a clear image from the resulting photograph.

@atmasphere  - thank you for your directness and candour, as always, Ralph 🙏🏻🙏🏻

kevin

I do have fond memories of that Dynaco ST35, will have first listening session with the Bendix 6094/EL84 amps this weekend. 

A great push/pull amp is compatible with far more speakers than an SET. And it might not sound as good as an SET on high eff. speakers, but it will still sound pretty darn good. So I guess that's my choice.

Interesting, the analogy to a camera lens, although the vaseline quip not accurate. So, if we are discussing image outlines, I don't like my image outlines drawn overly precise so does that mean lens out of focus, seems I do like it a bit out of focus. And then we can go to resolution and transparency of said lens, I've found varied degrees of resolution with both push pull and SET, SET doesn't inherently suffer here. As per transparency, this where I hear advantage to many SET, rather than looking at performers through a window or at a distance, performers enter my listening room, some may sense this as excessively forward sound stage, this is my preference. I could also describe this as a sense of immediacy, performers so close you get the feeling you can reach out and touch. As for even order harmonic distortion, this has to do with timbre, real live instruments have complex harmonic structure, even order harmonics catch this, odd order is ugly distortion. So some criticize this added even order distortion as inaccurate which connotes inferiority for them, I see it as color, perhaps it could be a bit more vibrant than the real thing, but the degree of this depends much on the individual amp.