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Best tube amp for jazz, B300

I heard a B300 tube 3 yrs ago and was blown away by the sur-realistic, the immediacy of the musical image. Smoooth and easy was the sound. The speakers , can't recall exactly, but were a popular model 3 yrs ago, the only issue I had was the slight bark in the vocals at one particular fq. Happened a few times with one jazz cd, male vocal. Can't recall the cd. It was the speakers fault, 100%. Now with a much better high sensitivity speaker, I'd say the B300 is one of the very best for jazz, considering all tube models..
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bartokfan
4 responses Add your response
jond's avatar
jond
5,807 posts
 
Do you mean 300B? If so then yes it's a great tube and in the right circuit it's great with any kind of music.
bartokfan OP
664 posts
 
You 300B. But not with classical. I asked my friend to put on some classical, the image was vampid, "bloodless:. No dynamics. Seems when there is too many fq's going on, the tube gets all confused and just throws out a flat image, little dynamics. I nothiced the very same effects with a system that was a Conrad Johnson tube mono blocks and Martin Logans new models, second from bottom of the models. This was 4 yrs ago. I was very disappointed at the system with classical.
boa2's avatar
boa2
1,551 posts
 
I asked my friend to put on some classical, the image was vampid, "bloodless:. No dynamics. Seems when there is too many fq's going on, the tube gets all confused and just throws out a flat image, little dynamics.
Wrong amp, in that case. Or perhaps a poor match between amp & speakers. Could have been a number of things, including the tubes being used. Many CD players do exactly as you describe as well. In fact, I haven't heard a CDP under $1500 or so that is capable of maintaining good HF separation when the music is layered and dynamic. As far as that tube is concerned, there are quite a few 300B amps that play classical startlingly well. It's not the tube.
metralla
945 posts
 
Seems when there is too many fq's going on, the tube gets all confused and just throws out a flat image, little dynamics
That's not the 300B tube at fault.

Regards,
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