Considering the New Tekton Design Encores? AND Owners Group - Experiences/Questions

@evolvist I'm pretty nearfield to my Encores and I love um.  If you liked the DIs, you're going to be ecstatic with the Encores. Read my prior posts for my listening impressions. 

@evolvist I just wish I had an extra 10 feet to give these speakers more room behind them and more room behind my listening position to get better depth and addedambiance.

MY LYNGDORF TDAI-3400 SHIPPED ALREADY!
Tentatively it’s arriving on the 7th if there’s no customs hold ups. That was so much faster than I expected! I highly recommend Neal at Sound Science if you are interested in getting a Lyngdorf. He was very polite, professional, and extremely fast with turning this purchase around very quickly.

@david_ten Because of how my room is layed out, I'm forced to fire off my long wall which is 16' across.  The speakers are 8.5' apart, approx 2.5' from the front wall, 3.5' from the side walls and my listening position is 8.5' away with about a 2' space behind me that allows me to recline in my listening chair.  The room has a 9' trey ceiling that drops to 8' around the perimeter.  The acoustics are very good in this room, so only minimal dsp around 40hz and 18khz needs to be applied in software on my roon media server to achieve a very flat response.  

@david_ten Yeah, I guess it just feels nearfield because I cant pull them out further or put the listening position further away.  They completely dissappear though and the depth and soundstage are as good as I could hope for. 

@grey9hound Yes, I’ve heard that too with Lyngdorf, duly noted. I’ve heard you can put the speakers against the front wall with the Lyngdorf, but that’s crazytalk. The Encores are rear ported and I’ve got an obstruction in the way regardless. Just seems counterintuitive because depth of field comes from bringing your speakers out from the front wall up to 1/3rd the distance to the rear wall.

The array goes a full octave lower. The array is very transparent, very resolute, exceedingly dynamic, and effortless in it's presentation from 300hz-20khz. There's nothing in the way between you and the music, no film, no grunge, no struggling.  It's like electrostatic-like crossed with the best of horns. The bass is prodigious and gutteral yet defined and detailed, the DIs are just not in the same league.  I could here tape-print-through on a vinyl rip of Frank Sinatra B side of Only the Lonely "Blues in the Night".  I can hear the next line of the song imprinted on the previous line of the song.  It's not analytical in the slightest, yet as detailed as humanly possible.  They are the best live sounding speakers I've ever heard.  

@charles1dad Yes, they are a very worthy upgrade. Where else can you get a manufacturer that gives you more than 50% of the speaker’s price tag just in drivers and the crossover parts alone? It’s unheard of! You’re lucky to get $2000 in total parts for a typical $10k high-end speaker. Hell, just the tweeters alone in the Encore are worth around $2400, but what they do collectively and sonically is priceless. This is a very high value proposition for anyone looking for a real steal of a deal along with exquisite performance that rivals speakers costing many multiples of the Encores price. Join the club, you won’t be disappointed.

@mr_m Oh, yes I completely agree with that, I think I misunderstood you.  I thought you were saying that the effect was caused by vinyl playback, but yes I agree the signal was transferred from tape to vinyl absolutely.  I must say it's pretty impressive of vinyl imho.  

@mr_m I asked my buddy who mastered the digital recording off the original vinyl with a very refined vinyl analog playback/ADC recording setup and he said it was mastertape print-through since I was hearing the next line in the song before it actually played. Sort of like a faint 2 second preview of the next line of the song, which makes sense at least to me since the following line of the song imprinted on the layer of spooled tape beneath it. I don’t understand how that is a vinyl playback related issue. I wasn’t hearing an echo. I actually originally thought it was Sinatra wearing headphones hearing a previous take of the song played while singing along with it slightly delayed and the mic picked up his headphone output faintly. My buddy said normally this effect is so far down in db that it’s inaudible or corrected in the recording. The relevance to me was only to point out to everyone that I had played that track hundreds of times on both horn speakers and the DIs and never noticed it before. For the first time it was very noticeable to me on the Encores. The point I was making al beit poorly because I didn’t go into much detail was how resolute and transparent the Encores were at the retrieval of this low level hidden information on this familiar recording. My buddy has jbl k2 speakers and he couldn’t hear it.

So the Lyngdorf TDAI-3400 sounds very good with my Encores. It's a very smooth, natural, and neutral sounding presentation. It's a little less forward than my Nords Class D NCORE amps + Benchmark DAC2 HGC. The Room Perfect definitely perfected the bass response, cleaned up the slight midrange congestion noticeably, and improved the depth of field slightly. It does sound lovely. It's a very musical combination. They really did a great job with creating a very short and simple signal path directly from digital bits to amplified analog sound. It's very resolute and detailed, but not analytical are fatiguing sounding at all. I couldn't be happier with the piece.

@charles1dad Yes I listen to jazz a lot. I’m a big Ella Fitzgerald and Satchmo, et al fan. I did play some Wynton Marsalis when I first turned the Lyngdorf on initially and it sounded very good even without Room Perfect setup. I really haven’t played anything else in the Jazz 🎺 genre yet, but I will and report back.

@olesno Thanks for your review on the Encores and Lyngdorf TDAI 3400 combination!  I wondered if it was you on the Tektons Worldwide Owners Facebook group I was chatting with!  Now I know who you are in both places so I can keep things straight in my head!  Things will only improve as time goes by for your Encores as things loosen up for the speakers and as well for your Lyngdorf as it breaks in. Chris is supposed to have his Encores today and he too ordered the Lyngdorf TDAI-3400 over this weekend and he will likley have it hopefully by Friday.  It's funny how we have 3 Encore owners each with the same Lyngdorf electronics!

 I was looking at the Lyngdorf for months, but I had a bad experience with a dealer and was offered another deal through the owner of Core Power Technology which turned into attempted fraud after 6 weeks of waiting and PayPal Credit having to refund me because his refund bounced his checking account.  So I shelved the idea for a month or so. I'm so glad I revisited the Lyngdorf and found Neal at Sound Science who took care of me and was exemplary.  

My Art Audio Diavolo SET 300b Tube Amplifier sounds phenomenally good through the Lyngdorf with the Room Perfect properly setup under a 2nd Speaker Setup while using the Preamp output on the Lyngdorf and my Luxman AS-55 amplifier switcher to switch from Class D to the tube amp.  It really makes a very noticeable difference in the Bass and Midrange.  I'm very happy with my system sound now and love both the Class D and the SET tube sound. I prefer the Diavolo on some music and the Class D on bigger pieces that can use the extra power.  It's great having choices! 

@olesno I've had very good experiences running Analysis Plus interconnects, speaker cables, and power cables.  My bias towards these cable center around their absolute neutrality, truthfulness, and electrically superior properties and not as a tone control. I don't like cables that have a flavor or act as a bandaid to an unbalanced system.  The Analysis Plus cables are very well made, rugged, and use a novel hollow oval geometry to lower resistance and inductance over conventional cables.  They are engineered by engineers, not amateur hobbyists selling snake oil. 

I use a 10' biwire pair of big silver ovals 10awg to my encores.  I separate runs of their black mesh 10awg to my luxman amp switcher and to both the Lyngdorf and the Diavolo.  I use their new triple hollow geometry, double shielded, silver apex for interconnects to my Diavolo. I use their power oval2 Mkll power cables on all my gear.

If you want a great cable with excellent bass and detail retrieval that's well made, you be hard pressed to find a better cable company to deal with.  If you're interested I can get you anything you want.  I know the owner, Mark, pretty well. I used to resell his cables when I was in highend audio back in 2001-2010 back in California so he gets me whatever I want at a discount.  

@olesno I sent you a pm. 

Thanks @david_ten for the link!

@grannyring Thanks for the info. I read the review. Very high praise indeed.  

@teajay Thanks for letting us know about the review. Sorry I forgot to mention you yesterday. Didn't want to leave you out! 

@klh007 Thanks for the RMAF Tekton coverage and updates! I'm jealous. Wish I was there. 

@jakefalcons My Encores are finished in the color Spanish Tile with a high gloss finish.

@d2girls The Encores weigh a beastly 175lbs each and are very well braced internally. 

@evolvist  Why did you want to buy the Encores then? I realize you are upset with Tekton, but really? My Encores have no cavernous sounds eminating from the box and more importantly they simply sound phenomenal. 

@freesole I use a Lyngdorf TDAI 3400 and a 10wpc SET 300b amplifier with reasonably good results with the Encores so I'm sure you will be very happy with 48wpc driving them due to the Encores fairly high sensitivity.  You can order them with grills, though I will warn you that you may be waiting a longer lead time to actually get the grills as others have suggested regarding other models they've ordered with grills. 

@iwasgointo Maybe you need the Ulfberhts? They feature dual 12" woofers vs the dual 11" woofers in the Encores, al beit it's a much taller, wider, and more expensive speaker.  I prefer the more slender and slightly less tall asthetics of the Encores in my room and find the bass to be very sastisfying. I agree the major gain to be had with the Encores is the MTM Array handling from 300hz to 20khz which makes them very beautiful, coherant, transparent, and electro-static like in the midrange and highs which are also very smooth and not harsh or bright at all. 

@ceaglek2782 There’s no Owner’s manual. Just make sure you use the very bottom binding posts and you should be fine in terms of hooking them up. Do not biamp them, they are only bi-wireable to my knowledge.

If you have further questions please let me know.

@latebloomer I'm terribly sorry for not replying.  I must have unfollowed my own thread by mistake. LOL -  I currently only use the Lyngdorf and it's a very good sonic match with the Encores.  It's not analytical sounding at all.  Very neutral, slightly warm sounding like a very clean tube amp.  No harshness or grain whatsoever. I sold my Art Audio Diavolo SET amp if that tells you anything.  Mostly because I felt with room correction engaged 8wpc wasn't enough to handle 10db of compensation at 100hz due to a persistent (I tried moving the speakers to no avail) bass suck out in my room.  However, I have recently purchased some 50wpc 6C33C PSET Monoblocks from Lansing Audio yesterday and hope the added wattage can give me the holographic and palpable sound that SET amps are known for while allowing to still use the Room Perfect Room Correction to clean up the 40hz bass mode in my room which when not attenuated for creates a bit of congestion obscuring the midrange. 

I meant do not use the tweeter adjustment binding posts located higher-up on the speaker.  You can biwire the speaker to the same amp. You can not biamp the speaker to 2 separate amps to the 2 bottom pairs of jacks. You can use the 2 bottom pairs of jack for biwire only though. 

The reason is because the top and bottom jacks on the bottom of the speaker are both wired to the entire speaker. You will short your amps out by biamping these 2 pairs of inputs, but bi-wiring with one amp is fine.  There's no example of anyone using the much higher located tweeter adjustment input jacks, that I know of. You are more than welcome to ask Eric directly if you so wish, but he's very busy and previous requests have gone unanswered.  

Thanks 😃 @shkong78

@coot Well, bass is subjective. I'm not a bass head to begin with. My Allnics provide ~10db of feedback and possesses ~10db damping to produce very tight, accurate, and even prodigious deep bass on thunderous deep house or on kodo drums for instance.  It's quite gut punching good. Most SETS are zero feedback designs, so they may approximate the deepest bass without the absolute control and slam that solid-state has to offer.  If your budget allowed I'd highly recommend the Line Magnetic 508ia 48WPC 805 SET amp for about $4600.  It's a premium quality piece with gobs of SET magic and way more power than you'll get from most low powered 300b SET amps.  Again, the Encores are 96db sensitive and 48wpc will get you plenty of amplitude whether it be bass or otherwise.  I really enjoyed that piece and at its price point its a relative bargain for such powerful SET amp.  Taylor at Goldprint Audio can help you. He's near me in NC, but maybe theirs a dealer closer to you.  If I can get by with 15wpc, you could be in hog heaven with 48 glorious watts per channel.  Regardless which way you go, I'm sure you're going to love the Encores, regardless. 
Glwys ☺ 

@charles1dad I switched back to tubes! I picked up some Allnic A6000 pse quad parallel 300bxls 60 wpc SET Tube Monoblocks from Audiogon! I absolutely love them with my Encores. Having so power really allows the Encores to perform their best! 

@charles1dad The Allnic monoblocks drive the Encores much better and that 50 extra watts of SET power allows me to play larger pieces of music with ease at higher volume levels all while maintaining its composure. Every nuance of the music is preserved at higher volumes. The Allnics delineate every instrument and voices with ease, they have incredible depth of field, and a haunting sound that startles me emotionally with greater dynamics both micro and macro. The bass is controlled and effortless now, whereas it was struggling on the Diavolo at higher volumes. The vocals are breathtakingly beautiful! The Lyngdorf is no slouch, but it doesn’t do what a SETs does in spades; make music sound real and emotionally engaging. I now do room correction directly in ROON DSP/EQ and don’t need the Lyngdorf for RoomPerfect anymore. The Lyngdorf was trying to add +10db of gain in a feeble attempt to quell a 100hz suck-out in my room. This put huge demands on the tube amplifier and even the Lyngdorf’s internal amplifier which would occasionally clip on certain bass heavy notes. There’s no way to eq a major suck-out in a room with EQ. Why the Lyngdorf tries to throw that much gain at the problem is beyond me IMHO and there’s no way to curtail it in the Lyngdorf. So the Lyngdorf goes up for sale next week. I put these Allnics into a class next to LAMM SETs. They do everything right, they are very well made, and they dig deep into the music to tickle your ears with excellent detail retrieval. I’ve been listening for 10 hours straight. I took a nap and woke up at 4am and started playing again this morning. I can’t get enough!

PS: I have an Ayon Audio Stealth DAC Tube/Pre coming today to replace the Lyngdorf. 

@cooThe Audio Mirrors @Sedond/Doug recommends are another high powered SET option as well. They're made in the USA at a very fair price. I've not heard them yet personally to offer any input on them delivering SET-like goosebumps and magic especially utilizing that russian 6c33c pentode being ran in triode mode. They are very beautiful amps though and definitely are a well thought out design considering their necessary protection system to prevent malfunctions if the tube decides to malfunction. 
I considered a similiar pair using that tube made by a one-off manufacturer in NJ. The amps were made in Vietnam, unbeknownst to me, and were very poorly made, even after a tech went through them and getting them working he just looked at me and told me to return them because they were of a poor design and were highly distorted way short of their rated power.  It was at this time I noticed the Audio Mirrors.  I reached out to the builder's Audiogon ad, but didn't hear back and around that time I discovered the Allnic A6000 Monoblocks and I decided to pounce on them.

If you go that route please chime in and let us know how you like them! 

@jsoku Congratulations on going with the new Encores! I love mine very much.  They are my forever speaker.

Regarding powering them I'm probably not going to be much help.  I run source direct from my Matrix Audio Sabre X Pro MQA DAC and power mine currently with a pair of 15wpc Allnic A6000 Quad Parallel 300bxls SET Tube Monoblocks.  The Encores are relatively high sensitivity at 96db albeit at a 4ohm load, but as you can see in my case, it take very little power to drive them to 94db peaks in my 20x13x8 room from my listening position 10ft away. 
I'm very biased towards to amps for music and SET topology tube amps in particular because of their 3D holographic and palpable portrayal of vocal and string/wind instruments as well as incredible sound staging.
  You can get pretty close with solid-state using a Pass Labs XA25 I'm told, but that over $5k.   

Eric pairs his speakers with Parasound amplifiers at the shows and they always get high marks for the pairing, but again they are outside your budget, unless you possibly find them used.
 
You could go with an amp that utilizes NCORE Class D modules offered by numerous manufacturers.  Some have better sounding input buffer boards, like Nord or Apollo Audio which even allow you to choose the overall tone you want by choosing the opamp chip to your liking.  Best bang for your buck might be a no frills ncore design.  If you Google ncore amplifiers you will get dozens of results. I know theirs a brand that's like $700, but their name eludes me at the moment. 
I prefer NCore Class D to most Class A/B amplifiers.  They tend to be very powerful and very low in distortion, but also are fairly smooth sounding. They do transients well too. 

Again, for music though. Imho, nothing beats a good SET Tube Amplifier or a Class A solid-state amp like the pass labs XA25.

Are you doing full surround sound?  If not, maybe ditch the receiver and look at the 2 channel anthem integrated with room correction. My friend loves his a lot.  Also, that receiver is your weak link. The dacs in most midfi receivers are quite awful sounding and have poor measurements to back that up.  It used to not be that way, but they really have gone down hill over the years. 

Hope this helps you some. Glwys

@charles1dad You could put me on a feeding tube and build a toilet into my recliner and I'd have little reason leave my new man cave, but I'm already clocking entirely too many hours listening to music as it is.  With the quarantine in place/covid mess and my pre-existing health issues I'm starting to become so much of a hermit that I'm may very well be turning into an agoraphobe by the time this pandemic is over. 😁

@coot Thanks for the kind words. I’ve never heard the Moabs, but I like to think to the Encores are special and believe Eric would mirror that sentiment as well.

Regarding bi-amping: I’m not a fan of it, it’s really unnecessary with the Encores. Whether 60wpc or 15wpc I still achieve at least 94db peaks at 10ft away with zero compression and no soft clipping. That being said usually if you’re going to do it, the amps typically are identical, and mixing topologies like SET and SS are not going to have remotely similiar gain structures or sound signatures. Can you gain match the amps and make it work with an active crossover or passive volume controls, yes, but should you? I wouldn’t. That being said SETs excel at glorious midrange and highs and give up a bit of authority in the bass (sometimes) due to a lack of feedback and damping (there are pros and cons to this approach)
, so if you’re going to do it and with non-identitcal/dissimilar signature topology amplifiers (which I wouldn’t recommend), at least keep the SET on the mids and highs, and keep the ss on the bass where feedback and damping belongs. If properly gain matched it will sound only disjointed. WHY? Well, I’m glad you didn’t ask 😁, but I’ll tell you why. I heard a $10k speaker I pined for years ago called a DB99 by Von Schweikert. It was a speaker designed for SET amplifiers and came powered with its own SS amplifier to handle the bass region fed by the output signal of your own SET amp. The idea being the SET amp could feed its flavored signal to the ss amp and therefore minimize the disjointed disconnect between the way a SET sounds and ss sounds while allowing the SET to handle only the high and mid frequencies . It sounded awful. I hated it. I tweaked the gain settings on the ss amp all night and never got that thing to sound coherent and right.

Furthermore, the Encores come bi-wireable, not bi-ampable, but don’t let that stop you from paying Eric to make them biampable, anything is possible. Surely that is in his capabilities.

I’ve been using SET amplification for over 20 years. When I was about 25 years old I had access to a bunch of solid-state and tube amps to audition over many months at a high end boutique in CA I helped out. After hearing many different amplifiers I took an Art Audio Diavolo SET Tube Amplifier home for a weekend and enjoyed it a lot, but I couldn’t afford it anyway so I brought it back to the store. A month of torment goes by and I’m thinking out of everything I had heard that Diavolo was the only thing that had a purity in the midrange and a 3d holographic nature that nothing else I had heard possessed. I meekishly asked the owner one day about it. He explained to me why it sounded the way it did. (Simplest topology, pure class A, no phase-splitter/zero cross-over distortion, pleasant 2nd/3rd order harmonic distortion characteristics that went along with the musical signal, etc) I had just moved to my new studio and I wanted to try it one more time before committing to it and he of course said "sure". It sounded even more glorious in my new place. Me and a friend were both picking our jaws off the floor it sounded so good. The next day I asked the owner "how much?". He sold it to me for $2500, it retailed for $6999. I literally was prepared to pay double that price, but I acted very nonchalant and paid him enthusiasticly. I’ve owned 2 versions of the Diavolo, and now I own the Allnic A6000s SETS. All I know is SETs, and I’ve never heard anything at ANY show or ANY store or ANY fellow audiophile’s house to make me think of switching to ss or pp tube equipment.

Sorry for the long-winded trip down memory lane. So to recap. I’m firmly in the buy, beg, or borrow, but get a SET amp camp and no, a push-pull tube amp, even in SE MODE isn’t the same thing. 😁

Hope this helps you out. Now go biamp some Encores! 😉

@mijostyn Just how many Fs do you think I could care to count about your ignorant opinion?  Zero, zilch, none.  BTW the tweeters are $100 a piece and, because you're slow, that's $3k in tweeters alone which is hardly cheap considering its an $8500 speaker which doesn't account for the $200 French midbass drivers or woofers or cabinet or finish. They actual sound sublime, but you'll never know since you already made up your mind before listening to them and don't understand the array's design or know their sonic attributes from any practical experience. 

@stephenurquhart My Encores are finished in Spanish Tile high gloss.  Sorry for the delay, I have been getting over the flu.

@roxy54 Thanks buddy!  I really love these speakers! 

@stephenurquhart Yes it's a custom color.  Eric will paint your Encores any automotive or specialty color you chose.  The high gloss finish is extra labor intensive and does normally cost $1000 more lately.  I'm not sure what current pricing is but expect to pay around $9000 or even a bit more.  Ask Eric for current pricing. 

@stephenurquhart there's no charge to pick any color you want. The high gloss is the up charge.  I've owned both double impacts in a flat finish and Encores in high gloss.  High gloss is worth it to me. 

@smodtactical - In no particular order:

JBL Everestx4 Stacked - (Excellent sounding system a friend owns, but I can’t afford even a pair though, and way too big for my room)

JBL K2 - (Excellent sounding system, my friend owns, but I can’t afford them either and too big)

Klipsch RF-7II (Horns that have a distinct/harsh rising upper midrange to highs, very hard to eq out)

Vonschweikert VR10, VR5, VR2, VR4JR (Back in the day they were great and very holographic, hard to drive with SET amplifiers)

Dali Helicon & Euphonia (Not forward sounding, way too relaxed, soft, and hard to drive with SET amplifiers)

Analysis Audio Omega Ribbon/Planar Magnetics (Hard to place, too big, hard to drive, and they sounding pretty good on some music)

Meadowlark (Nice sounding transmission lined speakers, no where near the dynamics of the Encores, inefficient design)

Cabasse (Yuk, horrible, NO!)

Legacy (Lovely sounding, just not on my radar anymore)

Orangutans (Very beautiful speakers, Lacking in the midrange and dynamics for me, although a nice higher efficiency design 96db, overpriced though IMHO)

B&W (Too harsh, beamy highs, fatiguing, and incoherent sounding- Maybe with McIntosh gear and the treble turned down.)

Vandersteen 2C & 3A (Nice background speaker, elevator music speaker, unoffensive, but not very dynamic)

Harbeth 40.1 (Beautiful sounding speaker, hard to drive with low wattage tube amps)

ZU Droids (No way would I own them, they are the worst measuring and sounding speaker on planet earth)


  There are many more that I’ve Auditioned, used to sell, or owned, but they aren’t very memorable.

@protoss71 Yeah I copied what used to be on site a couple of years ago. Not sure how mine compare to the newest ones produced.  I do know he got rid of the midbass ports recently too. He also lowered the price from what I paid originally. 

@bourcier I've only oggled their website a few times.  I was drawn to the 25th Anniversary Super Zen Triode 6wpc monoblocks (how could you not want a pair after reading that marketing material, 😁), but I fear atleast15wpc might be really the minimum the Encores need to sound decent with enough low-end extension.

I never looked at his other offerings, but I kind of like the guy. He's very passionate about audio and it shows in his product information.

@jsoku I’m not sure if it’s sonically advantageous to front port the midbass drivers or not. I guess there’s pros and cons to both approaches and Eric determined it’s better sonically without the front ports now. Maybe he’s altered the crossover too.

@jsoku I have been running source direct from a DAC happily for 20 years! I did try a Ayon Audio Stealth DAC which has a Tube Preamp in it and I felt like it robbed me of too much detail. That's entirely up to you, some people like to fatten and sweeten and warm up the sound more. I personally want my source pure and only have 2 digital sources and never needed a preamp anyway.  That's just me.  If you save money and gain resolution, even better IMHO!

@coot Yes, I only have 2 digital sources I switch between and I prefer the sound quality running source-direct from my dac. 

I've never heard the Ulfberhts, but I'm absolutely sure they have several pluses over the Encores. I pushed Eric to build me the Encores 2 years ago because I wanted a more room friendly and more asthetically proportioned speaker similar to the Ulfberhts at a more affordable price.  I paid $9k for them at the time with a gloss finish when the Ulfs were selling for $12k.

If you're on Facebook you should join the Tekton Worldwide Owner's Group. Then send a message to Jon Jonsyk and get his impressions because he has owned both Encores and Ulfberhts. 

If I had the room for them and the additional funds lying around I'd possibly upgrade to the Ulfberhts too, but I'm more interested in his 2112 speaker project since it's been quite a long while, they're shrouded in complete mystery, and it hasn't been released yet which has me curious like I was when people whispered about the mini Ulfberhts which became the Encores.

I might just harass Eric about them tonight. 😁 

@ditusa I drove my Encores to 94db peaks and 90db continuous spl from 10ft away with only 13 pc not 8wpc when using my Art Audio Diavolo.  Tom Willis installed the larger power transformer modification to support a 300bxls tube. Rather than argue with you, I will only say I did it and it sounded fine, even the bass.  I now own Allnic A6000 Quad Parallel SET Monoblocks which I run with only one 300bxls at 15wpc currently in the summer months and with up to 4 300bxls to produce 60wpc in the winter months.  The thing I notice is that at my normal listening level of 85db I don't need more than 15wpc anyway. I only moved up to Allnics because I had upgraditus and always wanted to own a more powerful pair of SET monoblocks and I love the EML 300BXLS tube.

@sid-hoff-frenchman I did own a pair of Nord 700wpc/4ohm One Up SE Ncore Class D Monoblocks ($4k) for awhile. They sounded alright, but absolutely nothing sounds like a good tube SET amp to me (I'm very biased about this so take that into consideration), except maybe the XA25 coming in as a close 2nd.  I thought having the Nords would be good for when I watch TV/MOVIE or just to save my tubes from wear when I am not critical listening.

I use a Luxman AS-55 Amp/Speaker Switcher to switch between tube and solid-state amps in my system.  Now, did having all that overhead make a difference?  Yeah you can blow your eardrums out, but most realistic listening levels are achieved at much more pedestrian wattage levels. The XA25 produces 50 watts into 4ohm at .01% distortion in pure class A and has reserves to go much further.  Most amplifiers are at 1% distortion at their rated power.

It's a 10 to 1 ratio with wattage anyway.  It takes 1000w to effectively double the output of 100w amplifier in spl.  So even with 50w you need 500w just to double the perceived spl.  At least that's how it's been explained to me. Please correct me if I am wrong.  All that being said, the Parasound pairs nicely with Tekton.  Eric loves pairing them together at shows and events.  You really can't go wrong with them.

@charles1dad Charles I feel like a heretic buying the XA25! It’s the first solid-state amp I’ve owned that I actually was intrigued with sonically within a few seconds of hearing the vocals and midrange play even while it was cold right out of the box. The gestalt was very jarring. My preconceived notions of solid-state are forever altered. Pass has devoted so much of his time to his First Watt amps and he sneaks this XA25 amp into his line up, which is nothing like the rest of the XA .8 series which use many transistors and have actually worse specifications. The utter simplicity of the XA25 along with it’s truly single ended circuit seems to be winning me over. I had 2 people suggest it to me whose opinions I value and so I decided to take the plunge and try it just to prove them wrong, but I am very pleased with it. Terry London’s Review mirrors my own sentiments regarding this amp being built entirely around the midrange and that it’s as close to SET like I’ve ever heard.

@millercarbon Thanks for clarifying. I knew I was on the right path, but I'm glad you clarified this for me. 😉