Expensive Tube Amplifiers

My experience is, after owning ESL's for nearly 30 Years and having in conjunction with the ESL's a selection of Cabinet Speakers that have been rolled and exchanged for the next better model over the past 30 Years, is that a Good Quality Power Amp' is going to make a Poor Speaker sound its Poorest and a better Speaker show where its betterment is. Today I have Speakers close to me, that impress me, which is what matters the most.

When visitors make statements that are with similar description to my own thoughts, is an underpinning to my own reckoning of where I am.

Today, I am expert at shaping End Sound within the owned System, I am far from system monogamous, but totally system Polygamous. I am at present able to produce a selection of End Sounds within a few minutes of each being deselected and remain thoroughly impressed with what permutation for the system is in use and what is awaiting its opportunity to be put to use.

In my assessment of other forms of entertainment, there are moments that stimulate, it can be a Particular Framing (Dances with Wolves) , a Particular Encounter with an actor (Halle Berry Cat Woman), a Dialogue between characters (Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz - Vanilla Sky), a Special Effect ( Jurassic Park).

Many many will agree with my list from Cinema Experiences and understand why there is an indelible memory, my indelible moments is any of the above films can be quite different to another's, but that don't generate disagreement, as those with similar experience have the common place where they have shared in an experience and been impacted upon as the result.

When it comes to Audio, for myself the indelible memory is End Sound, it is encountering this that creates the energy to return and return for more. If this experience of End Sound that is available, is not able to be encountered and experienced by another, how can others without sharing in the similar experience form an opinion on End Sound value to me and more importantly to themselves. 

No matter how much the basics are avoided, the entire history of Audio Equipment being used for experiencing recorded music as a replay, is solely about the End Sounds that are able to be produced. 

If it was anything different, there would be systems in place without Speakers. Another substitute to create a stimulus that is attractive and wanted to be experienced on regular occasions would be the alternate option.       

It was explained to me that there isn’t the usual distortion that push pull tube amps have because of the single output tube. Apparently with push pull there is distortion when one tube hands off to the other tube.

@vuch This statement is false and is a common myth. A push-pull amp can sound better than any SET by any metric an audiophile might find important. It depends on the topology of the amp and its execution. The reason has to do with how the various topologies made distortion, which is the main thing we hear as differences between amps (in much the same way we can hear differences between a cheap violin and a Stradivarius, since harmonics are how our ears assign tonality). 

If you mix push pull and single-ended circuits in the same amp you can get a prominent 5th harmonic, which is why SET lovers reject such amps. But that can be avoided by simply making the amp entirely differential from input to output, thus avoiding that pesky 5th harmonic issue. At that point the amp will be considerably lower distortion even without feedback and the higher ordered harmonics that make amps sound unpleasant will be seen to fall off at a faster rate as the order of the harmonic is increased. This allows the amp to sound smoother. 

@atmasphere As I mentioned above, I've had a push pull SET in the NAT Audio Generator and a SET single tube in the Magma M, both with comparable power ratings. The rest of the gear and, room layout was exactly the same. I'm not an expert but I'd imagine the differences in sonic quality has more to do with just differences in tube topography but that is probably a big reason for the sonic differences. The sonic improvements with Magma M's over the Generators was easily noticeable. I've enjoyed many push pull amplifiers but after hearing the Magma M's I won't be changing power amplification in my reference rig ever again. 

Regarding other tube amplification design, I am excited to see what a reconditioned Sansui 1000a receiver will do in my vintage rig. I've heard that model tube receiver was the gold standard of tube receivers for Sansui.

My tech said the reconditioned Harman Kardon 930 Twin Powered receiver he just completed for my vintage rig will be blown out of the water by the Sansui when it's finished.

Could this hobby get any more fun? I don't think so.

 

As I mentioned above, I’ve had a push pull SET in the NAT Audio Generator and a SET single tube in the Magma M, both with comparable power ratings.

@vuch ’SET’ stands for Single-Ended Triode. So there’s no such thing as a ’push-pull SET’ as you mentioned above. What did you mean by that?

@atmasphere I was mistaken. The Generators weren’t SET, they were push pull. My bad...

This is more accurate of what the Generators were: 

NAT Audio Generator mono block amplifiers use a pure single-ended, triode-based configuration in pure class A, employing zero global feedback. These amplifiers often feature military-grade single coaxial triode ceramic output tubes, such as the GI-7B for the Generator models, in a triode-based circuit.