Over the past five years I have been on an extensive and comprehensive deep dive of all things Single Ended Triode & DHT ampfification paired with horn loaded and open-baffle speakers. I have experimented and own just about every topology and combination. I must admit that it became obvious to me that I was late to the party as I had been reading about SET, horns, and open baffle speakers since the early 2000’s but had not really experienced this faction of the hobby. Until this point, I was only using and listening massive Class-A biased solid-state and tube amps required to power my not-so efficient magnetic planner, electrostatic and conventional sealed and ported box speakers. The so call “flea power” amps require high efficiency speakers to perform not only optimal but at useable sound pressure levels; they kind of go hand in hand. I chronicled a partial account of my systems with pictures and videos on my “Friday Night Listening” thread on another site forum:
Friday night listening
As I got in deeper in the rabbit hole, experiencing JE Labs style open baffles, Fertin field-coil full-range drivers, DHT filament-bias linestage preamplifiers driving Single Ended Triode and Single Ended OTL amplifiers, I spent less and less time listening to my “big” reference system based on a pair of Wisdom Audio Adrenaline Rush speaker system driven by 10 high power solid state monoblocks amplifiers in a complex but fairly traditional high-end system. What I noticed was the intimacy, clarity, transparency, and organic sound qualities of the low power tube amplification combined with horn speakers or open baffle full range drivers produce. My main reference system went unplayed for the better part of the last few years while I lived in the wonderful altered universe.
In order to restore the supremacy of my reference system I developed a method and process for “Remastering” the sound presentation of the system to incorporate the characteristics of my low power DHT/SET-horn-open baffle systems. I have been successful at dialing in a sound that is ideal to me and reproduces music with a “live” sound feel and immediacy. I have documented this process over on another site forum:
There is a smarter way
After achieving my objective with my “WAAR” reference system, I turned my attention back to my extensive collection of SET amplifiers, DHT preamplifiers, horn and open-baffle speakers and I told myself these are all great sounding components and systems but as systems they were not an ultimate expression of what could be achieved without limits in this realm. That’s when I told myself that I must put together a “reference” level horn based system that combines the crucial elements that I have experienced and learned. This brings me to the system that I’m listening to as I type this. A system where every single aspect has been taken into consideration and optimized in terms of performance. I’m a strong believer that cost does not correlate to quality so I did not set out to assemble components based on their cost but rather I picked the best performers available to me regardless of their cost or panache. What I am after is best sound above all and have no interest in parading pride of ownership trophies. I’m also a firm believer that the best sound and components comes from the DIY community over at DIYAudio and not in turn key commercial offerings. Again these are just my opinions and experiences and I’m certainly not here to convince anyone who believes otherwise. One thing that I have experienced is that the best performers come from design houses that build small-batch, bespoke and manufacturers that specialize on one component. These unique and special products tend to be bespoke, one-of-kind, and are typically rare and hard to source. I believe that I have typed enough to get my point across.
So I have assembled a six-way SET, horn, open-baffle, field-coil, Finemet transformers based crossovers, ultra-high efficiency (118db in one set of the compression drivers and 114db in a second set) that comfortably reproduces 27Hz to 30 KHz in a way that is truly spectacular and magnificent. When assembling this type of system with analog crossovers not only must you adjust gain levels of the different drivers but more challenging is keeping the drivers phase coherent without the use of digital delay. It has not been as easy to dial in this system but the results have definitely been worth the effort:
Friday night listening
As I got in deeper in the rabbit hole, experiencing JE Labs style open baffles, Fertin field-coil full-range drivers, DHT filament-bias linestage preamplifiers driving Single Ended Triode and Single Ended OTL amplifiers, I spent less and less time listening to my “big” reference system based on a pair of Wisdom Audio Adrenaline Rush speaker system driven by 10 high power solid state monoblocks amplifiers in a complex but fairly traditional high-end system. What I noticed was the intimacy, clarity, transparency, and organic sound qualities of the low power tube amplification combined with horn speakers or open baffle full range drivers produce. My main reference system went unplayed for the better part of the last few years while I lived in the wonderful altered universe.
In order to restore the supremacy of my reference system I developed a method and process for “Remastering” the sound presentation of the system to incorporate the characteristics of my low power DHT/SET-horn-open baffle systems. I have been successful at dialing in a sound that is ideal to me and reproduces music with a “live” sound feel and immediacy. I have documented this process over on another site forum:
There is a smarter way
After achieving my objective with my “WAAR” reference system, I turned my attention back to my extensive collection of SET amplifiers, DHT preamplifiers, horn and open-baffle speakers and I told myself these are all great sounding components and systems but as systems they were not an ultimate expression of what could be achieved without limits in this realm. That’s when I told myself that I must put together a “reference” level horn based system that combines the crucial elements that I have experienced and learned. This brings me to the system that I’m listening to as I type this. A system where every single aspect has been taken into consideration and optimized in terms of performance. I’m a strong believer that cost does not correlate to quality so I did not set out to assemble components based on their cost but rather I picked the best performers available to me regardless of their cost or panache. What I am after is best sound above all and have no interest in parading pride of ownership trophies. I’m also a firm believer that the best sound and components comes from the DIY community over at DIYAudio and not in turn key commercial offerings. Again these are just my opinions and experiences and I’m certainly not here to convince anyone who believes otherwise. One thing that I have experienced is that the best performers come from design houses that build small-batch, bespoke and manufacturers that specialize on one component. These unique and special products tend to be bespoke, one-of-kind, and are typically rare and hard to source. I believe that I have typed enough to get my point across.
So I have assembled a six-way SET, horn, open-baffle, field-coil, Finemet transformers based crossovers, ultra-high efficiency (118db in one set of the compression drivers and 114db in a second set) that comfortably reproduces 27Hz to 30 KHz in a way that is truly spectacular and magnificent. When assembling this type of system with analog crossovers not only must you adjust gain levels of the different drivers but more challenging is keeping the drivers phase coherent without the use of digital delay. It has not been as easy to dial in this system but the results have definitely been worth the effort:
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