Which 300b amplifier for Devore O/96

 Coincident Frankenstein Mark two is probably one of the best 300 B amplifier available at any price. Dead silent with the most natural life like sound with midrange to actually die for. Extremely highly recommended 

My experience with 300B has been pretty good having used a number of them. My favorite would be the Sophie Electric. They have both mono blocks and integrated......highly refined and plenty of power for the Devore's. 

I was in the amp shootout mentioned earlier by jsautter and I also built the Audio Note Kit 300b interstage amps used in the comparison - I wanted them to win! In fact, prior to the shootout, the Devore's sounded terrific with the Audio Note amplifiers and I was quite confident they would win.

I'm not technically savvy like many on the forum, but from just a listeners perspective, with the Devore O96's, the Atma-spheres are magic, even against some very strong competition including the Audio Note's and the Vac. They were detailed yet smooth, and the bass response was amazing but not muddy. 

It's tough sometimes to know how certain combinations will sound. Most of the time you have to guess. I'm sure there are other amps, some worse some better with the Devore's. But I know the Atma-sphere's are a great match and not something a Devore owner would regret. 

Thanks everyone for your thoughtful inputs.

After reading @almarg @atmasphere and @jsautter I put my 300b Coincidents back on and played some music with a with great dynamic range. This song goes from 66dB to 98dB in 10 minutes and back down.
I thought my 8W amp was able to handle it quite well without running out of steam. I put my 200W SS (class D, Lyngdorf TDAI-3400), I liked the Coincidents better and it even had as good or better bass.
Perhaps like the cliche we always hear in mags, the quality of watts not quantity matter here.

@riaa, yes I remember Matt @ Pitch Perfect Audio used Shindo Cortese with O96, and Art Dudley used the Air Tight ATM-300R on the Devore O93 (lesser sensitivity that the O96s by 3).

Hence I rounded up these set of 300b amps as my final list.

Maybe they sound even better with PP tube amps, I have not tried that combo yet, so I will take that into account.

In the coming weeks I will try to get a home demo of the Nagra 300b and compare them with my Coincident 300b that should conclusively tell me if I need more watts.

@pah, wow! The Kondo Overture was in my shortlist as well. You are making me want to put it in the running as well.

@cal3713 , yes will keep this thread posted as developments occur. Think our journeys are quite similar.

@shkong78, I was considering getting Takatsuki 300b tubes, I heard with the Coincident Franks they are sublime. WE 300b for $6000 are simply insane, I won't even go there.

@essrand Thanks for providing the update. Assuming a listening distance of say 10 or 12 feet, and a medium sized room, and given that the speakers are not planars or line sources, and factoring in a few db of "room gain," according to my calculations the 8 watts that can be provided to each of the 92 db/1W/1m speakers (as indicated in my earlier post) by your Franks can produce a maximum SPL at a centered listening position of about 97 to 100 db.

So given those assumptions your findings don’t seem to me to be surprising. But given the distortion vs. power level characteristics of SETs, which Ralph (Atmasphere) has described and which from a technical standpoint make sense to me, the bottom line would seem to be that when playing recordings having the kind of dynamic range you described (about 32 db) you are not hearing the Franks at their best.

I’ll add that while a dynamic range of 32 db is no doubt a good deal greater than the dynamic range of a considerable majority of recordings among the various genres, there are some that greatly exceed that amount. I referred earlier to the wide dynamic range that can often be found on classical symphonic recordings. In a few such cases, on labels such as Sheffield Labs and Telarc, by examining waveforms of the recordings on a computer using a professional audio editing program I have found dynamic ranges of as much as 55 db! Correspondingly, at my 12 foot listening distance SPLs produced by those recordings cover a range from about 50 db to about 105 db. I would feel safe in saying that the combination of an 8 watt SET and 92 db/1W/1m speakers could not handle such recordings at reasonable average volume levels, say 75 db or so.

Just some food for thought. It has long been my belief that a major reason for the divergent opinions we often see about power requirements is differences in the dynamic range of the recordings different listeners listen to. As well, of course, as differences in individual volume preferences, listening distance, room size, etc.

Good luck, however you decide to proceed. Regards,

-- Al