2. amps-preamps
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What speakers for 300B S.E.T ??

Hi,

Recently i heard a 300B based Audio electronics SE-1 SET amp + AE-3 pre with Lowther Academy speakers & was quite impressed with the immediacy,dynamics,soundstaging
& basically the whole presentation.

Now i'm very keen to try this to see if this is the kind of sound i would enjoy for a long time.Only way to know this i guess is to try it at home for an extended period of time. My previous exrerience has been with high powered SS .
( For ref : Supratek Chardonnay tube pre + Mac MC352 + TDL Ref studio monitors ) This is my first venture into low powered SET. I love the sound of my present sys. but the SET is a different experience.

Un fotunately my present speakers( 87db ) would not support the 7 watts the AES is capable of. The Lowthers are too expensive to experiment with. My goal is to keep the costs
low as possible . I shall very much appreciate your recommendations for high-sensitive monitors or small floor-standers ( HORN ??? ) preferably under $1K . This could very well end up as a second sys or it could go further.....

So what does everyone use with less than 10 magic watts ????
dilly

Showing 2 responses by jax2

jax2
3,031 posts
 
Any of the Klipsch Heritage series from the late 70's / Early 80's. In your price, LaScala for sure, Cornwall's, or Heresy's if wanting to keep the investment lower (though you will miss some bass authority here you should still get a very good sense of the SET/Horn experience).

If you are wanting to go the single-driver, purist route you could look for a used pair of Cain & Cain Abby's. I have not heard them myself, but reports I've read indicate they'd be a good match too. If your expectations are around the single-driver kind of sound (though the Academy uses two drivers) this may come closer to the sound you heard with the Lowther speakers. Used Abby's usually go for about a grand.

Nothing better than SET with horns to my ears so far.

Marco
jax2
3,031 posts
 
In hooking up my 300B SET amps to my Silverline SR17 monitors (89 db) I've found they can play at very conservative volumes, but the limits of headroom approaches rapidly as you increase the volume to more engaging levels of listening (for me this is around 85-95db, but my wife claims I'm hard of hearing). At those levels that combination renders some very audible distortion when pressed. I would definitely not depend on that combination as my system unless it were a bedroom system for occasional low-level listening, or perhaps a background system. Either of these applications seem to me like a waste of a good amp(s), as well as some outstanding speakers in the case of the SR17's. For an 8watt SET system I'd keep my minimum efficiency worth considering more like 94db to give you a more practical application of those amps. I've had pretty good results with 90db floorstanders, but ultimately I'd want a bit more for my 8 watts.

Marco
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