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Take the blind challenge! 300B SET vs. Straight Wire with Gain
- Thread starter GXAlan
- Start date
When I was about 8 in 1961 or so, Dad showed up with a couple of Eico kits and "we" built an FM tuner and integrated amp on the dining room table. He was into photography, too, so spent time in the darkroom watching chemical magic..
The kits, of course had tubes.
With the Garrard turntable and Pilot speakers, sounded like music to me.
I should have an inkling about that, I was in the school band starting in third grade.
Better sound than anyone else I knew had.
Don't remember thinking "This sux, I can't wait until transistors are beefy enough to take the place of those thermionic devices".
Do remember a lot of tunes being played over the years.
The kits, of course had tubes.
With the Garrard turntable and Pilot speakers, sounded like music to me.
I should have an inkling about that, I was in the school band starting in third grade.
Better sound than anyone else I knew had.
Don't remember thinking "This sux, I can't wait until transistors are beefy enough to take the place of those thermionic devices".
Do remember a lot of tunes being played over the years.
Ahhh, the glorious sound of 6dB of dynamic range!
MRC01
Major Contributor
What if the reason someone likes the SET amp is because its high output impedance gives a warm bass boost when driving his headphones?
If I understand this test, it doesn't emulate this.
computer-audiophile
Major Contributor
Thanks for the conversion, did you use the old Osborne computer from your avatar picture for that?
Any time. That's a Compaq, my first laptop. I had to carry it to work every day
Sgt. Ear Ache
Major Contributor
Not sure I get the point of this. Is it to prove to some of us that tube amps can "sound better" than a "transparent" set up? If so, my response would be...ok? I mean why would anyone think it's not possible for something that alters/does something to the signal to potentially do it in a way that might seem to tickle the ears in a more pleasing way? Adjusting the freq balance with an equalizer might also happen to hit a sweet spot that - with the right material - might seem to sound better in some way. I don't think most of us would argue that a tube amp "can't sound really great" or "can't sound better than a transparent amp." What we (or at least I) would say is that I don't want the amp (or the dac) to be the place where poorly-defined or uncontrollable sound processing is happening in my system. I don't want an amp that applies a filter to every single thing that gets fed through it that can't be turned off.
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- May 26, 2021
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Its not.By the way, to point out the (mostly) obvious, an SET-type amp will behave very differently into a more complex/difficult load, like a real speaker. This is possibly where the SET "magic" occurs
SETs sound their best driving easy loads, not difficult loads! One thing to keep in mind is that the tech is so old that the voltage rules most people take for granted had not been adopted. They use 'power rules' instead. Back in the old days, speakers with weird phase angles didn't exist!
So the speakers with which SETs are typically used will have a midrange and tweeter level control to allow the speaker to be adjusted to the power (not voltage) response of the amplifier and otherwise a simple crossover.
These days the adjusting is best done with pink noise... in the old days it was done by ear. A lot of people think those controls were to allow the speaker to be adjusted to the room but they are really for the amp.
Another thing to understand about SETs is, having no feedback, they are high distortion at full power. To that end, they really should not be used past about 20-25% of full power (IOW -6dB) because right at that point is where the distortion, in particular higher ordered harmonics, tends to take off. Since music has lots of transients, the additional higher ordered harmonics will show up on the transients, giving the amp a 'dynamic' quality due to how these harmonics interact with the human ear. If you read up on SETs, you'll see a lot of people talking about this 'dynamic' aspect. What's really happening is the speaker they are using is not efficient enough to keep the amp below that -6dB range. Truely high efficiency speakers are rare and really expensive because so much more precision is needed to build the drivers. These days speakers like that might be five figures... so most of the time, SETs are coupled to speakers with which they really have no business if you want to 'hear' what they are about.
BTW in case its not obvious, I see no reason for SETs; there are very good reasons they went away. SET lovers talk about how PP amps don't compare and when they talk about that, usually the PP amp is entirely different tube types and a lot more power. If you make a PP amp the same power, or use the same power tubes the SET uses but in PP, you find out that the SET has nothing whatsoever over more modern amps. This is the sort of thing that is easily measured and easily heard, so no matter what camp you come from, measurements or subjectivist, the conclusion is the same.
Mathematically SETs express a quadratic non-linearity, which is to say that H2 is the dominant distortion product with higher orders falling off on an exponential curve.
If the amp is fully balanced, a cubic non-linearity is expressed which has higher orders falling off at a faster rate (also exponential) with the order. This is simply because less distortion is compounded from stage to stage.
I think where the SET guys get in trouble is the PP amps they compare to typically combine single-ended and PP circuits, which tends to cause an enhanced H5. Crowhusrt wrote about this 65 years ago... those guys are at least that far behind the times.
I've found that SET lovers that resist this idea simply have not caused their hand to move and see what's out there...
Listening via short-wave radio in USSR circa 1967.
I agree that it's not magic, but I think it is the "magic" that some are seeking
SETs can't drive really difficult loads well at all. Easy loads, sure, but an 'easy' load doesn't mean the amplifier isn't getting into its very non-linear region or even into full-on clipping. And by "magic", I meant that the non-linear and clipping behavior of the amp is possibly what the fans are seeking.
Exactly the "magic" I was referring to.
I was baffled momentarily by the cued start, but pretty interesting once I got the whole story. Thanks!
- Thread Starter
- #54
Right now, it’s not clear if a 300B SET is more of a fixed *sound* effects processor or more of a fixed *visual* effects processor.
Keith_W
Major Contributor
Total votes: 14.
How disappointing. Objectivists love to demand blind tests. So it seems, only if other people are performing it. And then nitpick other people's blind tests to death. When it comes to doing it yourself, you are too lazy to participate. What about getting off your behinds and participating? Are so many here really only armchair objectivists?
How disappointing. Objectivists love to demand blind tests. So it seems, only if other people are performing it. And then nitpick other people's blind tests to death. When it comes to doing it yourself, you are too lazy to participate. What about getting off your behinds and participating? Are so many here really only armchair objectivists?
I quickly analyzed the music files by MusicScope 2.1.0 as follows. ___I will, maybe, listen to them hopefully this weekend.
Edit: The specific SACD of your interest has just arrived on my desk; I will extract the SACD layer and also will rip the CD layer, hopefully this weekend.
Edit: The specific SACD of your interest has just arrived on my desk; I will extract the SACD layer and also will rip the CD layer, hopefully this weekend.
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and;
thecheapseats
Addicted to Fun and Learning
how long does it take to take the test?...
Sgt. Ear Ache
Major Contributor
Oh, is this an effort to determine if the amps sound different at all rather than to determine which of these different-sounding amps is preferred?
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- Thread Starter
- #60
It’s both. It’s not a dichotomy.
In one of the music comparisons, the winning result is “I don’t hear a difference.” So you cannot presume that these are different sounding simply because I have stated that they are vastly different measuring.
Using you as an example. If you believe that these are different sounding and you believe that you do not prefer fixed sound effects, are you able to pick out the cleaner track each time? Grading the difference of the worse performer, would you grade the difference small, medium, or large? When the measurements come out, you can compare to your expectations.
Using me as an example, if the recordings are inadequately good to detect differences, or they have systematic bias (like one being louder), does everyone pick the louder track as their favorite?
These are all ways we can be better, scientific audiophiles. We can are learn from shared experiments and challenge our preconceived notions whether a subjective or objectivist.
I am also surprised at how few people are trying these 10-15 second comparisons. I have no way to know how many times the files have been downloaded, but I suspect a good number of people don’t have confidence in their answers and so they don’t want to say that they are not confident.
To all, vote honestly and you can tell everyone else you were right when the results come out or pretend you didn’t vote at all. No one but you will know how you voted unless you volunteer that info.
The $15,000 Western Electric 91E seems silly for something with horrendous measured performance. But aren’t you curious to hear that for free, just to see what it sounds like? Unlike snake oil cables or power conditioners where it’s all bias, this test is along the lines of Klippel’s distortion test but using the non linearity of the 300B which has a complex transfer level dependent function. We aren’t capturing the load variability.
I cannot afford the WE 91E just to satisfy the curiosity of knowing what it sounds like. This is second best. A chance to listen to a SET 300B integrated that you wouldn’t ever buy yourself. How bad or how good is it to you?
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