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In Reply to: Transcendent sound se otl posted by horny on October 18, 2004 at 13:42:22:
Hi Robert,I own the Transcendent SE-OTL, the T16, and a completely upgraded (parts, not circuit) Sun 2A3. I also own Lowther DX3 speakers mounted in specially made (by Doc Lowther himself) Medallion II cabinets. I have extensively listened to all the amps and am very familiar with each amp's sound. The SE-OTL is very neutral sounding, almost to a fault. It might be accused of sounding somewhat like an SS amp for that reason, but still retains all the smooth grain-free liquidity of a tube design. It is very extended at both ends, and very detailed. Dimensionality and soundstaging is very good but not the best i have heard. Compared to the T16, the soundstage and images tend to bunch together between the speakers, providing a little more "intimacy" but less expansive soundfield. The fact that there really are no vendors (other than Sovtek) for the 6C19P and 6H30 tubes used in the Se-OTL, means that you really can't tailor the sound with tube-rolling. Compared to the T16, the latter is much more expansive in its soundstage - well beyond the outer edges of my speakers. Because the input/driver tubes in that amp consist of 12ax7, 12au7, and 12at7, you can play with tubes and in fact currently my T16 has some of the warmth lacking in the SE-OTL. Both amps are very fast and detailed, with fantastic bass - as you would expect from good OTL design. The problem is, I keep returning to my 2A3 amp. Yes, the 2A3 amp is not quite as detailed and a little softer/looser in the bass, but the organic nature of sound, the immediacy and physical tangibility of intruments, the naturalness and emotion simply can't be beat. I have rotated all these amps in/out of my system at least 50 times and while each has some virtues the others don't posses, I keep returning to the 2A3 because I literally relax into the music and forget about stereo-stuff while listening. Bruce's components are designed to be very nuetral and largely sound similar ( I also own the Grounded grid preamp and can equally say that this is a very neutral component). The problem with the SE-OTL is that because of its ruthless neutrality, it might not be the best match for Lowthers (others have disagreed, so this is just my opinion), whose inherent frequency nonlinearities may be exacerbated by the neutral presentation, yet because of the 1.5W output of the SE-OTL, this is exactly the kind of speaker you would generally use it with. A bit of a catch-22. In any event, I would certainly recommend trying the SE-OTL and see if it's to your liking. It is a very good amp, just neutral to the extreme. It has a low-enough cost, that buying and trying is not a big deal. I usually own 4-5 amps at any given point in time, and there is really no reason you can't own both the SE-OTL and keep your "classic" SET amps. You too may find yourself rotating them. To answer the other gentlemen's question in this thread - the SE-OTL has 9db gain and I have successfully used it with a passive volume control with my Lowthers. However, really loud volume will require the volume control to be almost all the way up (0db attentuation). It may JUST be on the cusp of insufficient gain used in a passive setup for really loud playing. Hope all this helps.
-Alex
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Follow Ups
- Re: Transcendent sound se otl - ALG 08:20:03 10/20/04 (2)
- Nice post. Thanks. (nt) - TWR 06:12:28 10/22/04 (0)
- Re: Transcendent sound se otl - horny 11:04:47 10/20/04 (0)
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