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Is there a Solid State amp that can satisfy a SET guy?

Have been a SET guy for so long I have forgotten what a good SS amp even sounds like.
Just bought a pair of $33k speakers that will replace my current $16k speakers. Both are from the same designer and both are 92db and a flat 8 ohms. The new ones arrive in 4 days!
My 300B based amps well drive my current speakers even though I do use the system nightly as a 2 channel home theater. Especially considering the HT usage, I think I may enjoy a SS amp with many times the horsepower. The speaker designer suggests using a Leema Hydra II. I have written to Leema telling them of my 300B preference and they assure me that their amp does not have the destructive harmonics that make a SS amp bright. There must be other SS amps that can satisfy?
mglik

Showing 2 responses by cd318

cd318
2,636 posts
 
Great question.

I've always been interested in this since hearing of the infamous 1985 Stereophile Bob Carver challenge.

For those unfamiliar, I won't spoil it, but their honest conclusion speaks volumes.
Hey, it was the days of J. Gordon Holt. Different times.


"But whatever Bob, and others who can match his technical virtuosity, choose to do with the results of this project, I think that the field of high-end audio amplifier manufacture will never be quite the same again. High price and high status will continue to be handmaidens in audio, but the knowledge that high performance and high price need no longer be inseparable cannot help but impair the glamor of cost-no-object power amps.

We're still a little bewildered around here about how all this turned out. Not the way we expected. But that's the way it was."


https://www.stereophile.com/content/carver-challenge

More here.

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/the-carver-amp-challenge-and-the-21st-century-and-it-s-failur...
cd318
2,636 posts
 
austinstereo,

"As a result of being in sales and service of audio gear for a very long time, we have yet to encounter a solid state amp that can match a tube amp in terms of warmth and space. Just as true, we have yet to encounter a tube amp that has the tautness and attack of a solid state amp. A push pull tube unit is a bit more of a happy medium between the two extremes."


...we have yet to encounter a solid state amp that can match a tube amp in terms of warmth and space. Just as true, we have yet to encounter a tube amp that has the tautness and attack of a solid state amp.


Thanks. 

It does seems logical that the added distortion of tubes could be likened to the mildly loosening effect of a sonic screwdriver, giving the soundstage the gentlest lack of focus that many find delightful but which will inevitably also lead to a lessening of impact.
 
Particularly obvious with those loudspeakers presenting more of a challenge in regards to efficiency and impedance.

SET and high efficiency or high efficiency and SET, is where many decide to finally disembark off the upgrade train journey.

Ironically enough, close to the point where many others started, decades ago.
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