300b, x45, 211, etc.

Rchau - Are you talking about the guy at Taurus Audio in the Bay Area? What a *GREAT* room that is, as in *WOW*. And a cool guy too. The only system I've heard I liked as much was an Airtight (the KT88 one, I can never remember their designations) with a pair of large Opera Piega's. But the turntable was not on par with a Hyperspace. I sort of remember the guy at Taurus saying the phono was 47 lab... but if he's your friend, maybe you know differently...

I started a thread "Lowest power amp with Joseph Audio RM33's" - I have heard of someone using a 2 or 3 watt 45tube SET with a Pair Harbeth 40's (was in 6moons I think) and getting decent, though not spectacularly loud results... but of course I got a guy who told me "100 watts solid state minimum"; which is to me what leads to this sort of view of SET as difficult and unreliable. No one ever checks the ohms on the speakers which even if it's 4 ohms minimum, should be workable at 15 watts, if they're good. It seems to me a pair of Revel M20's at 4.4 ohms minimum would work as well with a Cary 300b as a Levinson, and might possibly have good synergy (crazy rich mids, and extremely neutral speakers), at least for a cheaper system. So 6 ohms minimum to me seems like it should run just about anything... or am I hi-jacking the thread?

Biomimetic, good stuff, keep it coming.

Bio-Yes, it is Taurus Audio in the bay area. You can usually find me there on Saturday or Sunday afternoons hanging out. That's why I have logged many hours with the Mastersound. I refer to Taurus Audio as the audio version of "Cheers".

The phonostage that Louis runs is the big Aesthetix. The stock tubes have been changed on the Mastersound as well as some of the stock parts. too bad the Euro is high against the dollar. When Louis first brought in the Mastersound it was $6 K. Of course, the Euro was trading at 1.23 Euros to the dollar then.

As to your other question, there is no set rule on speaker pairings and amp power. Obviously, a 2-3 W amp is not going to get you earthshaking sound unless you have really effficient speakers (94+ dB). However, for some applications it works well (small room, jazz, simple vocals, etc.) It's just that for a low power amp, you end up running at max power alot and possibly clipping which takes you into a higher distortion range on the amp.

I used to have a speaker which was 92 dB and never dipped below 8 ohms. It worked well enough with my 2A3 but the bass was always loose. That speaker just needed more power to control the bass. In another case, I heard a 10W amp driving a 90dB and 8 ohm speaker which had really tight bass and marvelous sound. You just have to find the right pairing.

for some applications it works well (small room, jazz, simple vocals, etc.) It's just that for a low power amp, you end up running at max power alot and possibly clipping which takes you into a higher distortion range on the amp.

COuldn't agree more.
However, my experience leads me to seek at least 20W before clipping for orchestral music; even with ~106db spl on the spkr side, I still needed extra energy when using a 300b pushed to 7W. And note that the amp was crossed at ~120Hz, (directly connected to the drive unit, passive line level xover).

In other words, I found it necessary to have a headroom of ~10+ db over the speaker's reference 1W/1kHz etc available in the amp.

But of course, a highish load impedance and good phase characteristics help the situation.

The Cary is one of my favourite amps for it's sweet, forgiving sound, my AES version is similar. That said both amps in stock version suffer from a design error that causes slew limiting, an inability of the driver circuit to provide enough current to the output tube to allow the high frequencies and fast transients to react quickly enough. The result is rolled off, slightly sluggish sound. In the AES, the 300b's can be replaced with 2a3's or 45's and the problem is solved. Otherwise the driver stage can be redone ( I wrote it up in Glass Audio magazine in the 90's ) and the result bears very little comparison from the stock circuit- very fast, detailed sound. If you can put 2A3's in your Cary, reducing the bias current %20, you will get a taste of what single-ended is capabile of.
Good Luck and good listening
Richard