Quick question. When you play at lower volumes, because of the simple design of SET, even if the power is very low, you tend to hear more of the attack, sustain and decay of the notes which makes micro dynamics sound amazing and more complete. If so, I agree.
I wish I could get the 300b SET sound in a 60 watt x 2 package but only weigh 25 kg in totalWishful thinking...I know.
Taken from an article by Thorsten Loesch (AMR designer)
It should be noted that the absence of negative feedback and the usually very
soft clipping in singleended valve amplifiers will allow short peaks to
overdrive the Amplifier quite notably, without the usual unpleasant
side-effects of very nasty audible distortion. The perception is often
of slightly reduced peak dynamics, but usually no distortion is
perceived as long as the overload is very momentarily. This effect
explains the audiophile phrase that Valve (or Tube) Watts are
"bigger" than Transistor Watts. They are not. But an overloaded
transistor amplifier will "latch up" (go into saturation) and thus take a
relatively long time (as much as a few 100uS) to recover from
transient overloads. The distortion on clipping is socially VERY
unpleasant. As a result even brief peaks that exceed the Power-Limit
of the Amplifier (say 50W) will sound subjectively distorted.
In an singleended valve amplifier it is however possible to overdrive
the Amplifier with brief peaks by as much as 10db before the
distortion becomes audible. That means that everything else being
equal, a 5W singleended amplifier without loop-feedback might be
played subjectively as loud as a 50W transistor amplifier using
loopfeedback
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