Euphoric Realism vs. Euphonic Romanticism

Exlibris, I bet moving the speakers into a different room had as much effect as any amplifier you tried!

Larger SETs over about 7-15 watts have trouble making bandwidth at both extremes due to the issues of the output transformer. My guess is that in this case that is helping you out. The amplifier is going to make nearly constant power on the MBL if you are using it on the 4 ohm tap. The MBL is designed with the idea that the amplifier will make only half as much power in the upper midrange where there is an impedance peak. You need feedback for that if you use a tube amplifier...

Or- as I mentioned to you some months back, you could use some form of network (to absorb the excess power), or a tone control (if you don't use feedback). From what I'm able to get from your descriptions, it sounds like you went the tone control route. As far as I can tell, it seems a happy accident, but is also why you are having such issues finding your 'holy grail'. Not much out there is going to work when you try to drive a Voltage paradigm speaker with a Power paradigm amplifier.

It is a fact though that a speaker that is designed for a zero feedback tube amp would win you more performance out of that tube amp than you are currently able to get. I think you are aware that something is amiss or you would not be on the hunt. Am I right??

Atmasphere,
I think I will always be on the hunt in audio. It is part of what makes the hobby fun for me. The goal I have for my system is to replicate real life and since I will never accomplish that something will always be amiss. I'll never find the holy grail and I'm fine with that. It's more about the journey than the end goal for me. In the midst of all the obsession over equipment I still find time to listen to about 10 to 15 hours of music per week.

As for the room, it made the Hovland Stratos amps sound drier and more clinical but the Mastersound 845s are quite nice in there (yes, just a happy accident). I will post some pictures of the room on my system page this afternoon.

My amplifier hunt for the MBLs is over but I may end up with horns and 300Bs in the future. There are two nice looking wooden horns in Germany that I would like to hear.

Thanks again for all your help; you make great gear and the level of customer service you provide is above and beyond anything in the industry.

Try the Canary 300B amp. I have the Reference 300B rated 85W Class A. It kind of give you what you prefer - immediacy, transparent, musical and mid range magic. They also make smaller version CA339 rated 45W class A. HP from Absolute Sound did preminarily review on Western Electric 79E (Canary made it for Western Electric exact duplicate REference model). HP commented it gives exceptional 3 dimenional soundstage. You can even see the back of the image (as HP said). This reference amp is neutral and musical; however it has the power and good control over the lower spectrum. Obviously it also retains the 300B high frequency with finesse, delicacy and clarity.I tend to agree with Atmasphere your MBL speaker doesn't synergize with tube amp. I have listened to good MBL system, but they all driven by ss amp.

Once you like the magic of 300B sound, it is really hard to get out to other tube sound, not to mention ss amp.

Happy hunting!!!

If I ever get a pair of high-efficiency speakers I'll have a great time trying out various 300B SETs!

MBLs and Tubes:

A fellow audiophile here in Canada has tried lots of excellent amps (SS and tube) on his MBL 101Es and it looks like he will be going with a pair of CAT JL3 Signature monoblocks. These are tube amps. All of the CAT amps can drive MBLs and the amps don't put out lots of watts (100 to 150 p/c). When asked how his amps are able to drive MBLs when 1,000 watt monster SS amps can't, Ken Stevens of CAT answers: it's his big output transformers!

'Vetterone' here on Audiogon also drives his MBLs with Berning tube amps (OTL).

I have been told by a reliable source that the owner/designer of MBL products uses a relatively low-powered tube amp on his personal pair of MBL 101Es (and he loves heavy metal music).

So you see, there are quite few of us using and loving tubes on MBLs and none of us are using 'high-powered' tube amps either.

Many people have only heard MBL speakers at shows and this is unfortunate because they are usually being played way too loud, they are being driven by SS amps (made in China, I think), with digital source material, in a bad room with bad AC.