A True convert is born


Decided to get into Tiny SET amps and single driver high efficiency speakers as a diy on cabinet aspect. Bought this APPJ PA0901A 6N4+6P14 Mini tube Amplifier Silver on amazon for $230 and upgraded tubes. 7 watts total works great btw! Bought Audio Nirvana Cassic 8 drivers from common sense audio and had a nice small tower ported cabinets made by local car audio shop. Speaker maker recommended simple 16 gage wire which is fine by me. After a short break in period all I can say is STUNNING. I have owned and listened to nice gear for years but the incredible sense of being there has never been this real. They drop off below 55 hz or so quickly as my box is not enormous but I listen to jazz mainly so no big deal at all, Plus I can hear the bassist pluck the string before it even fires they are so fast and sensitive. Vocals are just ridiculous and I tell you this whole system was $850 and that included a $200 black lacquer finish on cabinets. I use an oppo universal player and quality cds and this small elegant system is more pure than most $10,000 systems plus 3 small tubes are cheap to replace or upgrade. Any others out there who did this? btw these in no way sound like boomy hornloaded speakers.
128x128veroman
The APPJ is very responsive to tube rolling, not only the 12ax7 but the el84s as well. I use it with large two-way speakers (91db) that have simple crossovers and a benign impedance curve: the sound is great but I am tempted to make some single driver boxes at some stage and see what happens. They are technically a single ended pentode design. I read about someone who modified it to run in triode with good results, but then you're looking at 1.75 watts per channel.
I'm right there with you. I downgraded in costs, watts, market cache etc. to a simple SET system with high efficiency single driver speakers. I get the sound that I was always chasing with conventional setups.