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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
lynn_olson's avatar
lynn_olson
265 posts
 

Ralph, I see you introduced a PP 300B amplifier at one of the recent hifi shows. How do you think it compares to your Class D amplifier, in subjective terms? Since you designed both, you're the best qualified to assess the differences.

audioquest4life
722 posts
 

@donsachs 

 

I tried to post a new link but it gets blocked. You have to Google Soundstage SOUTHWEST Texas audio show. Not sure why the link gets blocked, weird. Use atmaspehere 300b prototype in search string. 

audioquest4life
722 posts
 

@lynn_olson 

 

“Ralph, I see you introduced a PP 300B amplifier at one of the recent hifi shows. How do you think it compares to your Class D amplifier, in subjective terms? Since you designed both, you're the best qualified to assess the differences.”

There are a few of us curious audio geeks interested in learning more. John Wolf of  Classic Audio Loudspeakers used them with his field coil speakers and he said that the bass was incredible. Perhaps time to ditch the Novacrons he uses a lot for the new 300. 

donsachs's avatar
donsachs
244 posts
 

That is the first thing you notice when you hear our 300b PP. The bass is amazing. It is not over emphasized at all, but if there is bass energy on the recording you hear it all. Most importantly, it is the quality of the bass, not the quantity. When I built the prototype I had never heard anything like it. The resonance in the body of instruments, the attack and decay of bass notes. Then we spent over two years improving the amps by eliminating cap coupling, improving power supply designs, working with Dave Geren through several iterations of custom interstage transformers, moving to Monolith output transformers, etc... Now the bass is otherworldly. So I can imagine a well designed PP 300b is going to have those qualities with a good field coil speaker and make people take notice.

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,595 posts
 

Ralph, I see you introduced a PP 300B amplifier at one of the recent hifi shows. How do you think it compares to your Class D amplifier, in subjective terms?

The prototypes at the show sound very similar to our class D amps; the big difference is the bass- the prototypes roll off at a higher frequency, and owing to no feedback and the OPT design don't throttle back their power when dealing with higher impedances, such as seen in the CALs at the show, which are bass reflex. So there was a bit of extra energy in the double impedance peak of the speaker. Its fun, but not correct.

Essentially that OPT loads the tubes at their power peak rather than a bit higher where the amp would have had a better chance at being more like a Voltage source. If the next iteration of the OPTs had been available, the bass would have been a lot more like the OTLs but ultimately lacking the extension that up until now has been something that OTLs do better than any other kind of tube amplifier.

The class D has the same relaxed mids and highs but is a little more transparent- its easier to hear what's going on in the rear of the sound stage if you have a 2-mic recording.

I think we can do better with the 300bs by using some of the tech we use in our OTLs. So the next PP version of the amp will be quite a bit different- with LF bandwidth similar to our OTLs with no sacrifice in high frequency bandwidth.

 

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