SET sound without a lot of money


Any experience or opinions on the Almarros, Music Ref RM10 mkii, or the Joule Electra Stargate amplifires? Looking for a good SET experience without overly-colored sound or congestion, while pushing enough current to excercise existing 91db speakers at low to moderate volume. I would like to swap one of these occassionally into my system without having to rebuild (re-buy)a whole new system to accomodate a tradional low-watt 2A3, 45, or 300b amp.
erfranke
Anyone had experience with "Tube Audio Lab" advertised here on the Gon? Appears he builds a variety of different amplifiers and sells them directly.
I bought a "kit" from Min at Tube Audio Lab. Great guy, good to do business with. He does great work on the amps he builds as well.
Erfranke,

Thank you for bringing the Tube Audio Lab site to my attention. It appears that the various designs are based heavily on old topologies and clones of specific designs, like the Western Electric amps.

My only concern would be, the extent to which the designer/builder actually listens critically and has made design and parts choices based on such auditions. There appears to be a lot of mix and match alternatives when it comes to the specific parts. I know that part choice is EXTREMELY important, and there is no such thing as a "best" or "better" part--it depends on application and personal taste.

I've heard amps where the "upgrade" consisted of replacement of cheap capacitors and resistors with much more expensive, and supposedly better, parts, such as Blackgate capacitors and Vishay resistors. The result of using price/popularity as the guide, instead of auditioning the results, were horrible; the designer chose those "cheap" parts for a reason.

If you go this route, it would pay to have a long discussion with the designer/builder about what he actually knows about specific choices. He does offer a terrific range of parts (when used correctly), and there is potential to make fantastic gear with the likes of Hashimoto or Audionote transformers, etc. But, there is also the potential to make extremely expensive disappointment too.
Larryi,
You wrote words of wisdom, nothing beats critical listening for building a component to its highest level. Random parts selection(based solely on reputation) is a bad recipe.