You make salient points. The amphibious vehicle is a good analogy. However as I noted above, that amplifier was a good sounding unit. So I must give Manley Labs credit for this unique achievement.
Charles
SET Shootout China VS The USA
2A3 SET from china arrives any day now.
The tech who loaned me his UX250 (aka 50 Tube) amp, with a 12AU7 in front + a 6BH7 (??) , has incredible pure Cobalt out trans. ($1k+ each back in 2000, now no longer in production). . he will help me set up the 2A3.
Has a AX+AU my 2 fav front tubes anda quad of 2A3's.
My speakers are pure neutrality, no coloration, no distortion,.
So whatever amp/ source you plug in, will register the nuances inherent in the circuit.
Will be very interesting.
USA has pure cobalt out trans which gives the edge in power, but the china 2A3 has a 2 tubes per channel.
Gonna be interesting and will post a YT upload with comments,
AFTER TESTING IS COMPLETEED.
Hand on to your horses at the OK Corral.
Grab a beer at the saloon,
sundown shootout at the edge of town.
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I had a pair of Cary PP 2A3 monos back in the mid 90’s that were great sounding and fairly energetic.. Too bad the reliability/quality wasn’t a priority with them. I went through 3 Cary 306 SACD players before I found one that was half way reliable.. even that one skipped and stopped loading properly a year later.. They’re just up the street from me, but I got tired of their lack of quality control and never looked back.. |
With the Manley, which sounded better in the setup you heard--the pushpull or single-ended setting? I am pretty much agnostic when it comes to best topology. I've heard quite a number of very good amps employing all sorts of approaches. Between my pushpull 45, pushpull 349 and parallel single-ended 2a3 amps, my favorite is the pushpull 349. There are things I do like about the parallel SET amp, but the fullness of the 349 amp carries the day. Among all the amps I've listened to in a familiar system, my favorite is a custom-built output transformerless amp--the sound was extremely vivid and lively, without having an unnatural edginess to it. My next favorite is a pushpull 252 amp (a real Western Electric 59A amp) that was also extremely lively and full sounding. I heard the 252 amp side by side with the Audio Note Kageki (the parallel SET amp that I own), and by comparison, the Kageki sounded thin and drab. The best SET amp I heard was an Audio Note Gaku-On. The Gaku-On sounds good with just about any speaker I heard it playing; . |
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@larryi I'm jealous of all the amps you've heard and own! I also never knew there was a 349 tube until your last post. I've heard a pushpull 45 amp sounding great as well as my own pushpull 2a3 amp, also loved a Cary pushpull 2a3 integrated I was loaned for a week once. @charles1dad Glad you had a chance to hear that Manley it sounds like a cool amp. |
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