Sophia 300B vs Jeff Korneff 45 Amp

The 45 is one of the best sounding SET tubes. It is partially because the tube is very linear and possibly because it is much easier to build wide-bandwidth output transformers for low-power SET.

A 300B - almost any - with some somewhat thicker, slower, and less extended than a good 45. And the Korneff amp is one of the very best. I have not heard better. I prefer it ultimately to the Yamamoto.

This may not be quite true for extremely expensive 300B SET amps. Certainly you will need to spend much more money to get the transparency, speed, and extension the 45 will give you.

However, while a 45 will play your speakers quite well, at loud volumes it will suffer dynamically in comparison.

Still, I'd go with the 45. I've had K-horns and Fortes.

Bill, a minor point, but it is not true that a SET "by definition uses one output tube per channel". Single-ended-triode: single-ended topology and triode output devices. No assumption is implied on the number of output devices. A parallel output triode amp using single-ended topology is SET. In other words a parallel SET is SET.

Wikipedia schmikipedia

Others do disagree, and if one looks at the name literally, there is nothing at all that speaks about number of output devices.

Single-ended, and triode. Period.

The thing is many people do not seem to understand what single-ended means - they assume it means "one output device" when, of course, it means nothing of the sort, and has nothing to do with the number of output devices.

I am sure you are aware of that.

Please elaborate, Bill. There's no need to make it a pissing contest.

Do you agree that the name - single-ended-triode - implies nothing about the number of output devices?