High Sensitvity = good transient response ?

Sam Tellig is far from the first or only reviewer to comment on tube distortion. There is a school of thought which contends that the reason why tube designs, and SET designs, in particular, have a sound that many find so appealing is because they introduce euphonious distortion. Now, hardly anyone wants to be told (1) that his amp has distortion and (2) that his ears prefer distorted to non-distorted sound. Thus, it isn't too surprising that the euphonious distortion argument is very often met with derision, if not anger.

In an ideal world, we would spend a lot more time saying what we like and why we like it rather than making broad and unsubstantiated (and largely unsubstantiatable) claims. For example, Twl and I disagree about the importance of low end extension, but I admire him for the fact that he doesn't propound pseudoscience in support of his position. He mostly says what the sound is like and why he prefers it. That's a good way to approach these discussions and one that I appreciate.

will

Those were Mike Sander's (Quicksilver Audio Mini Monos)) quotes, not Sam Telligs'. Mike also said:
"The push-pull had more top end extension, more bass extension, and sounded more solid and controlled. But the single ended had a fastness and a clarity, a purity, and a level of detail that teh push-pull configuration didn't have".
Maybe this is why the SET driven Brentworths had less bass. The guy who owned them did agree that they sounded "different" from other speakers and you had to get adjusted to the sound.

Well, I can agree with the last statement to some degree with some amps, but the earlier statements about the unlistenable distortion is just plain wrong. My statements that were inaccurately aimed at Sam Tellig can now be applied to Mike. Apologies to Sam. And just for the record, I do not have a SET amp. I have a push-pull triode OTL. So I am not on some kind of personal SET crusade or anything. But I have heard some SET amps that are fantastic and could never be characterized as "unlistenable" for anyone.

Twl, have you ever looked at the distortion levels of many "nice" sounding tube amps as power increases ? The distortion curves vs power output are not very linear to say the least. A good example of this can be found in a earlier review of a BAT product in Stereophile. If you remember, there was a HUGE uproar about the test results with this unit when the review first came out.

To top it off, I just saw an "updated re-design" of the Marantz 8B in Audio Xpress. While the factory Marantz was rated at 30-35 wpc, this "new and improved" design that uses a notably bigger power supply, wider bandwidth transformers and automatic biasing should do more power with better frequency response and lower distortion. If you look at the test results, this amp is COMPLETELY "done" at anything above 10 wpc if your criteria is low distortion reproduction.

I would like to see something like an Atma-sphere, Tenor or one of Roger Modjeski's designs on the bench to see how they measure up. My guess is that they would probably be somewhat similar ( albeit better ) to the above mentioned products. I think that much of the "richness" and "harmonic structure" that we hear with tubes are artificial byproducts of the distortion that they generate. I think that most humans like that "feature" of tubes and think it sounds good. However, i don't think that such designs are "accurate".

Please keep in mind that i have 7 different pieces of tube gear that i currently own, so i'm not coming from an SS vs Tube point of view. I think that SS and tube do sound somewhat different in many aspects and one should buy what they like and will enjoy listening to. Sean
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Once again, Sean is right on!