High Sensitvity = good transient response ?

Sean -

Thanks for your enlightening comments! I always enjoy your posts - and learn from them. Your explanation of the problems with low port velocity is new territory for me.

I haven't tried an Aeroport type port yet - but based on your recommendation I will soon. I had thought the only real advantage of flared ports was that you could get away with a smaller diameter port. Lately I've been experimenting with slotted ports running the full width and depth of the cabinet, but it's hard to adjust them once they're built.

...indeed thanks to Sean for such literate clarification. In just my listening experience I've only heard a few of medium efficiency i.e. 89...93 dB/W/m speakers that have a good bass.

I still do not understand people having fun from 100dB/W/m with SET amps. Bassically you can only listen to voice in this case.

Marakanetz, I do indeed enjoy your posts and feel you are a very informed and perceptive individual. On the high-efficiency speaker with SET comment you made, though, I believe you are in error. If you sat down in front of my system which consists of a 1 watt triode OTL, and a pair of Lowther 100db/1 watt fullrange, you would wonder how anyone could say that "voice is the only thing you can listen to". Granted, the bass is somewhat limited to around 40 cycles and there is some "vented" sound to the lowest bass. But,it is very, very good from there on up to 22kHz. As I said in my last post, many other high-end speakers also roll off around 40, and have vented bass, so this is not unusual. Many extreme audiophiles consider this type of system to be the most musical and natural of all systems. They are not idiots. There is definitely something to be said for this type of system. I am hoping that you were exaggerating your point somewhat, because wide-frequency extension is not limited with these systems with the exception of the lowest octave. Some lesser-quality transformer-based SET's may roll off the highs due to transformer induced problems, but not on my system. In any case, the addition of a sub would cover all freq's well, and this is quite common with many types of other high-end systems as is well-evidenced by the plethora of subwoofer threads on this forum. I felt the need to take issue with that statement, because I thought that it was too stereotypical, and an overstatement. Our members who do not know about SET/high-efficiency systems deserve a fair assessment for their knowledge base. I take no personal issue with you, but only wish to set the record straight.

Thanks for honoring my posts, TWL as I honor yours the same. I have many reasons to believe you and probably I should give myself another chance to listen SET/Lowther but did you try to A/B your SET amp with more powerfull amplifier despite having Lowthers 100dB/W/m?

The ultimate tube electronics for me were always Manley and I had a chance to listen to Manley SET amps with Coincident Eclipce. I loved the sound but than I swiched for integrated EveAnna's 50W/ch amp and enjoyed much more.

As Sean stated that everything depends on funds invested into the product and almost every design can succeed in the right combination and it's realy fun for us to find our own equilibrium in funds vs. performance.

Marakanetz, perhaps you just prefer the sound of push-pull amps better than SET's. There is nothing inherently wrong with push-pull amps, and they have more power to kick the bass a little harder. My little Berning amp is actually a push-pull, using 6SN7 preamp tubes for outputs, and maybe that is why I don't feel that the bass is lacking like you say the single-endeds are. Whatever the reason, this little MicroZOTL kicks some booty on the bottom end. Really tight too.