Could you, for my benefit if not others, share some sonic impressions of this amplifier? Thanks
This sort of thing used to come fairly easy to me, but for whatever reason I struggle with this kind of thing now. Part of the problem is, I'm finding, that the closer a system gets to sounding like real live music the fewer words and descriptions seem to apply outside of just saying "it sounds live" or the like. The way I always put it the few times I've had conversations with people about it is this: it puts you in front of the microphone. That's how I feel about it. After I finished the last round of upgrades it felt like things shifted gears. Talking about things like soundstage just doesn't seem to fit anymore. What I hear when I listen now is the entire acoustic space the recording microphone was in. With eyes closed it is incredibly easy to imagine I'm there. There is a perception of air and space that I didn't even know *existed to be perceived* in a recording before. It makes the music feel much deeper, much more real.
Literally everything else I owned was holding the 45 back. As I upgraded other components I kept unlocking new aspects of sound I couldn't perceive before. That alone says everything about how good Glenn is at this. Literally everything else I owned was holding it back, and maybe still is! One other thing I can say is: I'm content. You have to know me as a person to realize how much weight there is to that statement. I'm never content with anything, ever. To reach a place where I'm truly happy with my system and am not striving for more is a state of being I didn't think was possible. Everything just sounds so *right*, in every aspect you care to examine. Tone, realism, timbre, note decay, transients, leading edges, dynamics, and on and on...... they all just sound *right* as you would expect them to sound in real life. I'm honestly so amazed that this kind of realism is possible in a recording.
Hmmm..... so what I can I say that might actually be *helpful* to you? I wish I could compare the sound to the 300B or the EL3N but I haven't heard either of them. It's pretty easy to make generalizations about the 300B sound, but I haven't heard Glenn's take on a 300B so it seems unfair to make those assumptions. Conventional wisdom says a 45 has a leaner and less "bloomy" sound than a 300B, but Glenn's amps have a way of breaking the mold in a good way. I can say that if you like a "tubey" or "rich and euphonic" sound the 45 might not be your ticket. It's a very accurate sound. Probably closer to a very good solid state amp, but with superior tone color (and by superior I mean more correct because the tone colors of solid state amps all sound wrong to my ears). I think most people who have never heard a 45 before are surprised by how fast and dynamic they are, especially given their power output. But people also take these comments to mean the sound is not as musical as a more "tubey" amp and this is absolutely not the case! The 45 has this "toe tapping" quality that makes you extremely aware of rhythm, time and harmony that deepens your listening experience. It just doesn't exaggerate certain aspects of the sound in the way most traditional tube amps tend to. The most incredible way to experience it is when you can turn off your other senses. I will listen eyes closed with the room as dark as I can make it and the way the notes just emerge from the blackness is hair raising on some recordings. It's so easy to feel and perceive the recording space this way.
Everything else feels like a more shallow listening experience by comparison. Within the scope of what I have personally experienced and listened to of course. I have no idea if any of that rambling is helpful to you, but that's what came out of my head when I sat down to write this reply.
Cheers and happy listening.
