SET Asylum

The whole M2.2 design is unlike most SET amps.

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This Post Has Been Edited by the Author

In Reply to: RE: of course, Harley wasn't listening to just ANY ol' SET posted by triode on April 26, 2012 at 22:44:20

Sorry, ML2.2.
i) Truly serious gapped OPT,
ii) huge regulated PSU including a big power transformer.
iii) 12-14dbw of power into the right load,
iv) grunty overbuilt gain/driver stages
v) IIRC it also allows a little NFB, or has that gone from the M2.x series?
vi) large heavy, and expensive* and HE-ish (>93db/w) speakers needed for FR stereo sound to maximise the ROI.
vii) so expensive* to use twice over, but justifiable in my view, though never not affordable by me, even IF I won a lottery I'd do something else.
Expensive high end stuff? I don't hate this sector - lucky bastards ! - but I use DIY rebuild/rethinks on PP classics instead, to get close and for far, far less money.
The $$$$$$$ prices are 'fair' because they don't make a lot of items, and the components used to build them, even when bought in 100s or even thousands, still have to be paid for while in inventory before mfr, and many are rejected, and then there's the inventory cost until the completed pieces are sold. I should think their enterprise risk is also quite high.
Lastly, I don't think SE amplification is a sine qua non for excellence. Indeed low power DHT SETs seem to me to be a good example of an 'interesting rat-hole' to go down, design wise for hi-fi. Because deep bass and mid-bass control become really DIFFICULT.
IME carefully managed PP/differential circuits can do the magic too, for less. But this does require the use of regulated/big PSU's, SS constant current sources for splitter/drivers and perhaps power valves, and probably DC and AC balance controls on the driver and output stages, .... if even they are to be accessible / affordable AND still do the magic.
DIY is the budget path here. Including my version, find a good tech to work with on 'rethinking' used classics.
I also feel that multi-amping has real benefits so long as the 'amplification whole' has matching rise and decay times, and the speakers are at least capable of doing real 3D on real-stereo recordings. This includes revealing the recording's overall polarity.
Skimming the reviews of the whole ML2.x series so far, and of the Canadian behemoth speakers used with the ML2.2, I was quite struck by that mob's top two or three speakers clearly differentiating and revealing: the playing/singing, the live acoustic, and engineering/miking of each recording, when the Wilson MAXX's tend to homogenise a bit on the last two. The reviewer in question preferred the Wilsons as well.
Now, one of the several things I agree with Peter Quortrop of Audio Note about is a deeply wise point he made in his marketing a long while ago. It is that the only really valid test of whether you have improved your home audio system is whether the change has increased the difference between every recording you have in those areas, while improving the music on all of them as well. I think I'd have preferred the Canadian company's speakers.
More agrees!? Valve circuits just do get some things right, and that very few SS circuits approached them until quite recently.
A good system should tell you that stuff and make music. Mine has since 1981 at least and on a budget cf most here.
I disagree with Peter on; that SE is THE path as I've laid out above, about 'noisy' / 'tuned' speaker enclosures, and about in-corner mounting of any but Constant Directivity speakers, and I'm not too keen on that either, and that will do for now.
On the speaker front I still feel that a WR driver band-pass filtered, with a ribbon tweeter, and a bass array from ~ 200 hz down to 25 or lower, and tri-amped, is a more valid path.
IMO needs>/= to 91db/w midband sensitivity and an easy 8 or 16 ohm load for each amp. Avoid the floor dip issue as well.
And this path does allow the use of SE amps for mids / treble at least.

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Timothy Bailey

The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio Scrounger

And gladly would he learn and gladly teach - Chaucer. ;-)!

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Edits: 04/28/12

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