[Hirsch]

Quote:

Originally posted by Hirsch IIRC, the EAR is a push-pull amp, but I could be wrong. I'll have to look at the manual.

I just R'ed TFM, and the EAR is indeed a single-ended amp. That means that all of my tubed headphone amps are single-ended, with the exception of the Melos, which is hybrid.

 

[ddriveman]

Quote:

Originally posted by kuma The thing is, I don't have a 8 ohm tap on this amp. Only 4 ohm. So, I'd t hink I'll get less than 8 wpc, right? I'm not familiar with LadyDay, but meshplate 300B is a very very nice bottle. I had a Sophia 300B meshplate based amp w. 274B rectifiers.

Although you don't have an 8 ohm tap, it should still work nicely with the K1000. I have tried the K1000 on my 300B which has both 4 & 8 ohm taps. While the volume is slightly lower with the 4 ohm tap, the sound is actually slightly better with a puchier bass.

Yes, I agree that the meshplate tubes are nice. BTW, the Sophia 300B meshplate is a rebranded TJ 300B meshplate. They are the same. I also have a TJ meshplate 2A3 and it is very nice with extended bass and treble.

 

[gilardino]

I've listened to the Cary SEI running 95db monitor speakers and I owned the Decware SE84CS that I ran with my Klipsch RF-3. I've also owned a fantastic push-pull speaker amp, the Audiomat Arpege (30 watts). I've also owned the Cary SLI-80 for headphone listening, the Emmeline HR-2, and now the Singlepower Supra.

From my experience a SET amp has a very distinctive sonic signature of it's own. It's not for everybody. But for the one's who are will love it. It does not do loud and dynamic too well. Lower level information isn't all there mainly with symphonic music. It is liquid and warm, engaging and highly musical. There are attributes it holds that are like live music but I would not say it sounds like live music. It's hard for me to put these into words. SETs are great with very high efficient gear, either heaphones or speakers.

My Singlepower Supra does not have the characteristics of a SET amp. It is dynamic and gives you all the bass information. I can't speak conclusively because it has about 250 hours on it so the sonics will change.

 

[Sovkiller]

One thing I noticed while listening ot the Supra and the Maestro, that are claimed to be SE, is that we have to crank the volume almost to half a way, just to drive the R-10 and other similar headphones, that are efficient enough, that of course could be due a low gain on the design also, but that was curious, most of the amps I have owned just with 9-10 o'clock or a litle bit over (case of the Perreaux) is OK to drive any load....

 

[sacd lover]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sovkiller One thing I noticed while listening ot the Supra and the Maestro, that are claimed to be SE, is that we have to crank the volume almost to half a way, just to drive the R-10 and other similar headphones, that are efficient enough, that of course could be due a low gain on the design also, but that was curious, most of the amps I have owned just with 9-10 o'clock or a litle bit over (case of the Perreaux) is OK to drive any load....

If your using a high impedence headphone you dont have to crank the volume with the singlepower amps. Tubes are high voltage devices with low current output. Solid state devices are high current devices with a low voltage output. Tube amps drive high impedence phones more easily while solid state devices drive low impedence phones more easily. I had to crank my gilmore amps to drive the high impedence beyer dt880's, but hardly had to turn on the volume with the grado or cd3000 headphones. This is not always true though as my ppx3 drove the grado's or cd3000's pretty easily.

 

[averydonovan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sovkiller One thing I noticed while listening ot the Supra and the Maestro, that are claimed to be SE, is that we have to crank the volume almost to half a way, just to drive the R-10 and other similar headphones, that are efficient enough, that of course could be due a low gain on the design also, but that was curious, most of the amps I have owned just with 9-10 o'clock or a litle bit over (case of the Perreaux) is OK to drive any load....

Were the Supra and Maestro you heard equipped with potentiometers or stepped attenuators? From my understanding, Mikhail can configure his stepped attenuators to give good listening volume on HD600s on the 12-o-clock spot, and the amps with stepped attenuators he brought to Rocky Mountain Audio Fest were configured this way. Comparing an MPX3 with pot and MPX3 with stepped attenuator, the one with a pot barely needed to go past 8-o-clock to be loud enough while the one with a stepped attenuator needed to be at 10-o-clock or 11-o-clock.