dowto1000
Junior Member
Well guys, I am new to this forum, and this Thread caught my eye. I will give it my best, but I will be talking of MY own goals, not necessarily yours - DIY designing and building the BEST POSSIBLE amplifier for high efficiency speakers.
ALL of this is ..." the best " but ONLY .......IMHO and IME.
YMMV.
To play the SET game properly, or should I say optimally with 2A3s, or 46s, FIRST OFF, I find you need to be running 98 dB efficient or higher speakers.
Anyone ever hear of ALTEC Lansing and / or new GPA ??? :-)
Usually it will be a KISS... HIGH quality two-way speaker. IME, one-ways are ultimately not going to cut it versus a two-way. Also, I LIKE a 15 inch woofer, not a 12 inch., IME.
The Type 45 tube is bettered by the Type 46, triode connected, in my experience.
The Type 45 has lotsa nice sonic qualities to it, suckered me for two full years, but eventually " I " ( and another good listener have co-confirmed this ) : so "we" co- find it has a very broad and very shallow suck out in the middle midrange, ( that NO ONE has ever mentioned !!! ).
It is mostly noticeable on classical piano ( Beethoven Sonatas, Alfred Brendel, etc ).. On my hybrid VOTTs, this deficiency truly makes the Type 45 tube a "dead-end" waste of time and money deal IMHO..
Suggest you use a 46 triode-connected....... IF you want 1.3 Watts.
OK, back to 2A3s, and my search for the ultimate amplifier solution , again YMMV, you may have different audio goals than I have, its all IMHO, IME :
The best 2A3 vacuum tube choice, for the money today, IMHO, is easily the JJ 2A3-40. For many reasons.
The best 2A3 tube amp for high efficiency speakers ( ALTECS , Ale , etc ) will ALWAYS be a SET amp.
It will always be a two stage amp.
It will always have a mu of 70 to 100 driver tube.
It will be tube rectified.
It will NEVER employ a coupling cap or a interstage transformer couple, between the two stages.
Direct coupling only is optimal in design. It is sonically, the very very best way to couple !!
It will....very very important, have a L1/C1/L2/C2 filter system for the output tube's B+
L1 will always equal L2 in construction and specifications.
It will, very very important, have Ls that are 10 Ohms in DCR or less !!! ( Sadly, that eliminates 99.3% of the SETs ever built . ;-) )
It will have no capacitors larger than 60 uF total.
All caps will be FILM types. Its hard to beat, cost versus performance, many of the latest WIMA offerings ( DC LINK, FKP- ones, etc., etc.)
If you want to have the SET be something more than ordinary in performance, it will ALWAYS employ MULTIPLE film cap bypassing, at EVERY "C" location in the amp.
( Multiple film cap bypassing must be done, if you want to achieve the fullest musical expression from the SET. Only a few people know how to do this. )
It will have the best possible lay out, to preserve the performance potential inherent in a SET.
If I sound rigid, I am sorry, but I must tell you, when seeking the BEST possible result, I have found there is really only ONE optimal 2A3 amplifier SET solution, and it is easily proven, by the resultant performance.
Have fun with this, I surely do.
Dowto1000.
ALL of this is ..." the best " but ONLY .......IMHO and IME.
YMMV.
To play the SET game properly, or should I say optimally with 2A3s, or 46s, FIRST OFF, I find you need to be running 98 dB efficient or higher speakers.
Anyone ever hear of ALTEC Lansing and / or new GPA ??? :-)
Usually it will be a KISS... HIGH quality two-way speaker. IME, one-ways are ultimately not going to cut it versus a two-way. Also, I LIKE a 15 inch woofer, not a 12 inch., IME.
The Type 45 tube is bettered by the Type 46, triode connected, in my experience.
The Type 45 has lotsa nice sonic qualities to it, suckered me for two full years, but eventually " I " ( and another good listener have co-confirmed this ) : so "we" co- find it has a very broad and very shallow suck out in the middle midrange, ( that NO ONE has ever mentioned !!! ).
It is mostly noticeable on classical piano ( Beethoven Sonatas, Alfred Brendel, etc ).. On my hybrid VOTTs, this deficiency truly makes the Type 45 tube a "dead-end" waste of time and money deal IMHO..
Suggest you use a 46 triode-connected....... IF you want 1.3 Watts.
OK, back to 2A3s, and my search for the ultimate amplifier solution , again YMMV, you may have different audio goals than I have, its all IMHO, IME :
The best 2A3 vacuum tube choice, for the money today, IMHO, is easily the JJ 2A3-40. For many reasons.
The best 2A3 tube amp for high efficiency speakers ( ALTECS , Ale , etc ) will ALWAYS be a SET amp.
It will always be a two stage amp.
It will always have a mu of 70 to 100 driver tube.
It will be tube rectified.
It will NEVER employ a coupling cap or a interstage transformer couple, between the two stages.
Direct coupling only is optimal in design. It is sonically, the very very best way to couple !!
It will....very very important, have a L1/C1/L2/C2 filter system for the output tube's B+
L1 will always equal L2 in construction and specifications.
It will, very very important, have Ls that are 10 Ohms in DCR or less !!! ( Sadly, that eliminates 99.3% of the SETs ever built . ;-) )
It will have no capacitors larger than 60 uF total.
All caps will be FILM types. Its hard to beat, cost versus performance, many of the latest WIMA offerings ( DC LINK, FKP- ones, etc., etc.)
If you want to have the SET be something more than ordinary in performance, it will ALWAYS employ MULTIPLE film cap bypassing, at EVERY "C" location in the amp.
( Multiple film cap bypassing must be done, if you want to achieve the fullest musical expression from the SET. Only a few people know how to do this. )
It will have the best possible lay out, to preserve the performance potential inherent in a SET.
If I sound rigid, I am sorry, but I must tell you, when seeking the BEST possible result, I have found there is really only ONE optimal 2A3 amplifier SET solution, and it is easily proven, by the resultant performance.
Have fun with this, I surely do.
Dowto1000.