SET Asylum Single Ended Triodes (SETs), the ultimate tube lovers dream.

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Re: I can do that...

Posted by Ralph (M) on December 27, 2006 at 11:51:43

In Reply to: Hmm...Ralph, you almost always are more constructive than this. Who was... posted by jeffreybehr on December 27, 2006 at 10:56:37:

but I always am dealing with my own biased viewpoint, so you have to keep that in mind.

SETs have a richness that OTLs do not have. The reason for this is that SETs have even ordered harmonic distortion that we perceive as richness. The 'lack' of richness found in OTLs is really neutrality.

A proper OTL will be every bit as easy going, in fact more so as OTLs often lack the loudness cues that SETs have. It is these loudness cues BTW that give SETs their apparent dynamic qualities that belie their power output. The loudness cues are odd-ordered harmonics that are masked by the presence of even-ordered harmonics (which plays into the way the human ear hears, so the loudness cues create an illusion). On transients the harmonic distortion will be several orders of magnitude higher than in-between transients; thus the 'dynamic' quality.

Once you are aware of this fact, it is a lot easier to hear the distortion itself when you know what to listen for. Since OTLs can have quite a lot of distortion cancellation (even with no feedback), they often sound more laid back than the best of SETs.

I have found that in 90% of all audiophile conversations, if you substitute 'distortion' for 'dynamics' you get a far more truthful conversation as a result. It is a simple fact that there is far more distortion in reproduced audio than most manufacturers would have you believe, tube or solid state.

Anyway, the other thing about SETs in general is the lack of hysteresis loss in the output transformer that allows them to have the low level detail ('inner detail') that is one of the things that makes them so magical (combined with the lushness of even ordered distortion) compared to push-pull transformer coupled amps.

Take away the OPT and you take with it the argument for SETs; IOW an OTL will have the same or better low level detail, but combined with the greater power, bandwidth and lower distortion of push-pull. Its sort of like having the best of both worlds.

There are several caveats IMO: feedback, pentodes and class of operation other than A will detract from the music and add odd-orders which will be easy to hear with everything else laid bare. That is why we build our amps the way we do- Class A, zero or nearly zero feedback and triode. Those parts of the formula work, as far as I can tell...

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Kimber Kable

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