Gave up my SET----looking for moderate to higher power replacement options

Lots of quality recommendations and educational posts in here. Good luck with the search. I was going to tell you about my efforts in the same regard, but I went from 8W 300b SET monos to a 25W First Watt PP. Moving from 45W to 100W seems like a tall order. My journey was difficult and I think yours will be harder, especially with the budget limitations. Please do post back with updates regarding the journey...

Just out of curiosity, I went over to usam and looked at the amps for sale between $2000 & $3000. Not that I think they’re going to sound like a SET, but three I’d be interested in trying if I were in your situation were the Ayre V-X5e (200W), Modwright Instruments KWA100 (100W), and the Carver Crimson 275 (75-90W).

I’ve heard the Benchmark, Mola Mola and Soulution amplifiers (Examples of High NFB circuits) no SET sonic characteristics in my opinion. I don’t deny that many listeners loves these particular amplifiers and in fact I could be in the minority.

@charles1dad There is a reason that I mentioned the bit about the designer paying attention to human hearing rules (I didn't put it in quite those terms). If he's not careful, and does not permit the lower orders to mask the presence of the higher orders, the amp runs the risk of sounding dry. Now if you get the distortion low enough, this phenomena is reduced, but you have to get really low distortion numbers! 0.0001, that sort of thing. So if for whatever reason you can't get there, then you have to be sure that the lower orders mask the higher orders.

To give you more insight on this, almost any solid state amp has less higher ordered harmonic distortion than almost any SET. But the SET has a huge 2nd order by comparison, which tends to mask those pesky higher orders.


(Here's a fun bit: amps that make the 2nd ordered harmonic as their primary distortion component have what is known mathematically as a Quadratic Non-linearity. Amps that have a 3rd as the primary distortion have what is known as a cubic non-linearity. The difference is, if based on the 2nd the distortion harmonics do not fall off as quickly as they do if the 3rd predominates. Since the 3rd is treated the same by the ear as the 2nd (contributes to warmth and 'bloom') an amp that is based on the 3rd will still have a musical presentation, but otherwise will be perceived as being more neutral since there is less coloration overall (the 3rd will be slightly less than it is in an amp based on the 2nd harmonic) due to distortion. This is why I built entirely differential amplifier circuits, as the simple fact that they cancel even-ordered harmonics in each stage throughout the circuit caused it to have its major distortion component as the 3rd. Since distortion is not compounded from stage to stage, the higher orders fall off at a faster rate as the order is increased.)


Obviously the brightness and harshness of traditional solid state that we've heard over the last 50 years (and why tubes are still around) is a coloration too. I don't agree that we hear all that differently: all humans use the higher ordered harmonics to sense sound pressure and all human's ear/brain systems assign the same values of brightness and harshness to these harmonics when they are distortion. IME people express these differences out of expectations of what a stereo should be, if not sounding real. When you ask for the music to sound real, then (again IME) these differences tend to go away and people start hearing the same things.

I have a Sciit Ragnarok which I like a lot. It is probably class AB and I have not compared it to many others. Around $1.7k.

Ralph,
I understand that we humans hear the same in regard to neuro-acoustical physiology pathway or msechanism (Using higher order harmonics to gauge sound pressure and detecting harshness and brightness). I should have been more clear as I’m referring to individual taste/preferences IOW the subjective aspect.

You used the term "dry" and that describes how the 3 amplifiers I cited sound to me (Definitely a subjective judgement). Someone else may describe them as accurate and very neutral. This is the hearing/perceptive differences I was referring to.
Charles