SET 45 Amp Driving Dynamic Speakers

My 8watts 300B SET plays on not even horn and not even efficient speakers (marvelous 88dB XTZ Master M2 speakers to hear or have), and yet sounds loud enough. Imagine now with efficient speakers!!!

'Sounds loud enough' is exactly the right term but for the wrong reason! The reason it 'sounds' loud enough is due to distortion. If you were to put the very same amp on a horn system, it would not 'sound' as loud until it was actually playing a lot louder, due to the fact that on a horn system there would be less distortion and so it would not 'sound' as loud.

This is because the ear converts distortion into tonality and in addition, uses higher ordered harmonics to calculate sound pressure. If the system has excessive higher ordered harmonics, it will 'sound' louder than it actually is. A sound pressure meter sorts this sort of thing out really quick! If you have excessive distortion, 90 db might 'sound' pretty loud since the ear's sense of sound pressure will be skewed; if the distortion is absent, 100 db (10x louder) might not sound any louder!

I recently swapped out my old EML mesh plate 45s for a new pair of their mesh 2A3s. I decided to go with 2A3s because that's what the ASL Tulip is really designed for. I was concerned that I would lose that 45 "magic", though.

After breaking in, the 2A3s have the magic, along with more "authority". The increase in power is probably 1 watt, or less, but I do get a sense of more headroom, a little more ease on the peaks.

If they really were type 45s, your output power is likely tripled. 45s only make about 0.75 watts or so single-ended. A 2A3 can do 3-5 watts.

Ralph,

I thought 45s made 2W and one should run them at under 1W draw to keep distortion from growing much.

Is this what you mean by 0.75W?

Wow! I thought these EML 2A3 mesh were broken in, but they continue to get better. To me, they Just get out of the way and let the music flow. If you are a fan of the 45 sound, but want a little more power, I'd definitely look into these. They are not cheap, and you may have to wait for a dealer to get them in, but they are totally worth it.