Amp for my 2 channel

[RGA]

Might I suggest that, since you are a reviewer and a very vocal advocate of SET/HE then, you should make it your goal to be familiar with a wide range of SET/HE models; for the following reasons:

1) Since most of the time you talk about one brand, you will NEVER be taken seriously by most persons (yes you mention other gear - but often ridiculously expensive stuff and hence not real alternatives to AN).

Well I think this is the underlying point as to why after more than 20 year auditioning equipment why I happen to like Audio Note as much as I do. The ridiculously expensive alternatives ARE so far what I consider to be the alternatives, especially for digital replay. For amps and speakers there are alternatives that I quite like - but not all of them are SET friendly speakers - although someone pointed out success with a SET on a speaker I didn't think would be SET friendly. If true then I will have something new possibly to rant and rave about - although I already chose the speakers as one of my 5 favorites at CES. If it truly does sound good with a SET then I would buy it myself.

2) You might actually find SET equipment you like more than your favorite brand.

Something you may not be aware of - I like AN as a system. Not as much as individual components in a mix and match system. In the latter there is plenty of stuff I would buy over Audio Note. If I owned McIntosh OTL SS or Bryston amps I would not buy an AN speaker for example which will just sound poor IME. So I have a wealth of other speakers I would look to instead - incidentally - less expensive speakers! This applies to their amplifiers. Hearing the M6 in an appropriate AN system over lower models the improvement is striking. Listening to the M6 with a top Rotel Power amp into Magnepan speakers it didn't do a thing for me. Not much better than listening to far less expensive preamps. It is not a fix all. The Digital seems to do better regardless of systems but not the 1.1 - it takes the 2.1 or better. The 1.1 sounded rather shouty and thin in a Sim Audio set-up with Dynaudio speakers. I liked that it really showed up the discs and told me about the way those discs were recorded but it wasn't relaxing. Sounded less tube-like than the SS CD players in the room. Ie; in that set-up I would have purchased a less expensive CD player.

There are not a lot of affordable SET amps of high quality out there. Audio Note isn't really affordable either. The entry level from them is the Meishu in terms of a 300B and it's in the $10k range. My experience with SET has been that it takes a lot of coin for it to really do justice to the sound. The Kit One is the least expensive good sounding SET that I have auditioned. And it's $2k and you have to build it. I was not thrilled with the Cary 300B or the ASL SETs I heard. The Wyatech Labs is good but expensive. I have hopes fort the $1400 Grant Fidelity. I heard a Bottlehead model that I didn't care for - can't remember the name of it though. A lot of them don't sound transparent - often rather mushy in the bass. I suspect it comes down to the transformers - they need to be excellent. The sound is heavily dictated on the quality of parts. This is less so with SS. Which is why you always read that some company has a $600 amplifier that is beating up expensive solid state and no one passes blind tests. I am never surprised by this in the world of SS.

3) If you have direct experience with a wide range of SET from the ultra-affordable like the Musical Paradise MP301 and Miniwatt N3 all the way up to the ultra luxury ones, then you will have numerous SET recommendations that you can make at all levels...

That''s a fair point. But like anyone else on these forums I do not have limitless resources or time to hear it all. I try to audition as much as I can - dealers are helpful but they tend to carry bigger name established brands. I'd like to listen to Zu for example but with no dealers I can't. I can order it in - but if another reviewer gets to it on our staff then I am out of luck on the specific brand. I tried to get a really interesting speaker in but the shipping to Canada for this small speaker maker was so high that it would have been difficult for him. Especially since I have never heard them in person and if I didn't like them then it would have been really costly for him.

As a relatively new teacher in Canada - we get laid off virtually every year at this time. So spending the money to go to an audio show is also difficult.

Ideally, what I would like to do is compare 6-7 SET amps at prices from $300 to $10,000. A Musical Paradise, a mini-watt, The GF, maybe a Glow Audio, AN Kit one, Tri Amp, Meishu and maybe an ASL and Shindo. And compare each of those price points to various SS amplifiers that I also happen to like. Say, Rotel, Sim Audio, Heed Audio, Sugden, Pass Labs, Classe, and maybe an Ayre (based on the fact that I liked their digital).

While many audiophiles will at some point spend substantial amounts on gear, often they choose to test the waters with something more affordable (like what Mr. Peabody asked about earlier in this thread)... If you suggest a good say $1K SET amp and someone tries it and likes it, then chances are that when they are ready for the $3K to $5K amp, they will look in the SET direction again... If all you have to recommend in SET are in the $3K and up category, then only the richest audiophiles are likely to be willing to test the waters with such a piece...

I do get your point. I tested the waters with the ASL MG Head DT headphone amp for under $500. It even sounded pretty decent as a preamp despite using the headphone output to RCA connector. But my fear of this is that there are more compromises to cheap tube amps than there are to cheap SS amps. With SS you are spending more for more power and not necessarily "better" sound - at least within the house brand sound. As the Bryston rep noted and they even said it on their website when questioned - a 3B sounds exactly the same as a 4b or 7b for sound quality - only when the 3b is driving something it can't drive properly (a too hard to drive speaker) will the 4b sound better. On efficient speakers they sound exactly the same - they themselves said this. YBA also said the same thing with their separates versus their Integra DT integrated. Sound quality is exactly the same - only the power demand is the issue.

With SETs the quality of parts is critical and there is only so much "quality of parts" in a $500 SET. Something has to give. A lesser off the shelf transformer is going to have greater difficulty sounding clean. Of course if the buyer is accepting of the fact that a $400 amp whether it is SET or not will have limitations and not be dumb enough to judge SET technology on a $400 amp then great. But a lot of people judge the entire horn segment based on 80s Klipsch or Altec.

For a cheap SET amp I really liked the Glow Audio. The Sonist speakers sounded very good with the amp - though I think the Sonist is a little too hard to drive. I auditioned at normal listening levels and never really had them push it. Others did and found the amp was more strained. But the Sonist may be a little more complex and no all that efficient. Even AN doesn't recommend amps less than the 10 watt OTO and the OTO isn't even recommended for the AN E - more for the easier to drive J and K. So on the cheap end of the spectrum I do have an amp I can recommend - the Glow Audio. But for better bass you have to spend on an amp with superior transformers - and that simply costs more money. Still you could use the Glow Audio with a single driver speaker of some kind and I suspect it would be outstanding and not too expensive. Maybe a ZU or Teresonic's smaller standmount.

Here are a couple of reviews of the Glow Audio

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/glow/one_2.html

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazin...io_amp_one.htm