Dennis Had designs and builds some astonishingly great sounding SET stuff...I own a 2016 built SEP (Pentode) that's amazingly well made. More recently he's done 300B amps and other stuff, but it's hit or miss when he might list new amps on Ebay...utterly worth finding one. You contact him through Ebay.
SET amplifier (for AvantGarde Duo's-original) recommendations
Hello all,
I inherited the above speaker and I have been really enjoying them. I also have a pair of Thiel 3.7s- paired with pass labs xa60.5's (and it works!) which I also love albeit they are very different animals from the DUO's as you can imagine.
Right now I am focusing on the Duo's and have used them both with Pass Labs and a Mastersound Compact 845- both are great but there is something about the DUO's driven by this 845 SET that is magical. The problem is that the 845 was dropped and developed a hum. A technician went through it and managed to reduce the hum but it is still there and it bugs me- I am not sure if one of the transformers itself may have been damaged and that isn't really repairable at reasonable cost, though I will speak to Mastersound to hear their thoughts. I should add that the amp used to be dead quiet and generally Masetrsound makes superb amps- and are renown for their transformers.
So I am now starting to think about alternatives solutions- I would like to either stick to a SET of comparable quality (that is known to be relatively quiet with efficient speakers)- maybe a 300b type just for a change, or even an OTL.
There's a lot of stuff out there at the moment, take the Line Magnetics that are floating around (but would they compare to Mastersound in terms of build quality etc?) and I was hoping to get some insights on what you think would work well. I have read a lot of reviews and while helpful at times I feel they are almost always positive and a little too generic when comparing similar products. I'd like to stick to a $5k or so budget (therefore I would look for something used).