Dev,
The SL doesn't run hot (not in my application or Jay's). It currently is offered in matte aluminum and black (chrome aranya is discontinued). The pre
is offered in aranya only. They make a tubed and SS pre.
As expected the tubed pre does some things better than the SS and vice versa. The pre uses 6922's in the signal path and EZ80/6V4 in the PS (yes, tube selection in the PS has a big influence on the sound). The stock 6922's are Sovtek.
Surprisingly they don't sound bad in this pre. They have been dreadful in every other component I have heard them (including the CAT pre's and amps). They are quiet, cheap and reliable and that is why so many manufacturers use them. Somehow Rolf from SL has found a way to make them sound decent in his pre. I am not going to rehash a discussion with Bombay on the merits of tube rolling in the CAT pre and amp. I'll just say that if you are using the stock tubes in them, you aren't even close to realizing their potential. Most that have rolled in them agree with that statement. John Fox uses JL3's and runs the tubes I sent him to audition (after trying countless combos of very expensive NOS). The only things our systems had in common were CAT amps (and some cabling) yet the same tubes produced the best sound in both our systems.
I know you refuse to buy ultra expensive tubes but sometimes they are the best (there is a reason people spend that much for them). Again, I don't post much on these forums anymore because I don't have time to waste arguing. No matter how many times some reviewer says that XYZ tube amp "plumbs the depths of what is possible in bass reproduction" or similar nonsense, their BS will not rewrite the laws of physics. I suspect that your friends with Apogees, Dali's _____ fill in the blank difficult to drive speaker, will be as surprised as I was when they directly compare their tube amps to SL in their systems.
Everything is relative. They may currently think their tube amp is doing the bass just fine until direct comparison. The VTL's have double the damping factor (sorry numbers sometimes tell valuable stories) of the CAT
and especially in tetrode do the bass better than CAT. Again it is CURRENT that controls bass not WATTS. There is a reason that most tube amp manufacturers will not tell you what their amps damping factor is. I called and spoke with Luke Manley's wife when I was considering the Wotan's.
She refused to tell the damping factor which I later found online. If you do a Google search on damping factor you will find a wealth of information that explains it in understandable scientific terms. It the the bass that costs all the money to get right. Some people are fine without it and love their SET powered ultra sensitive speaker systems. But if the objective is full range done right, damping factor and physics can not be anecdotally explained away. The problem with having heard bass reproduced correctly is the realization that nothing else (the rest of the spectrum) is right without it. FWIW IMHO
Bart
The SL doesn't run hot (not in my application or Jay's). It currently is offered in matte aluminum and black (chrome aranya is discontinued). The pre
is offered in aranya only. They make a tubed and SS pre.
As expected the tubed pre does some things better than the SS and vice versa. The pre uses 6922's in the signal path and EZ80/6V4 in the PS (yes, tube selection in the PS has a big influence on the sound). The stock 6922's are Sovtek.
Surprisingly they don't sound bad in this pre. They have been dreadful in every other component I have heard them (including the CAT pre's and amps). They are quiet, cheap and reliable and that is why so many manufacturers use them. Somehow Rolf from SL has found a way to make them sound decent in his pre. I am not going to rehash a discussion with Bombay on the merits of tube rolling in the CAT pre and amp. I'll just say that if you are using the stock tubes in them, you aren't even close to realizing their potential. Most that have rolled in them agree with that statement. John Fox uses JL3's and runs the tubes I sent him to audition (after trying countless combos of very expensive NOS). The only things our systems had in common were CAT amps (and some cabling) yet the same tubes produced the best sound in both our systems.
I know you refuse to buy ultra expensive tubes but sometimes they are the best (there is a reason people spend that much for them). Again, I don't post much on these forums anymore because I don't have time to waste arguing. No matter how many times some reviewer says that XYZ tube amp "plumbs the depths of what is possible in bass reproduction" or similar nonsense, their BS will not rewrite the laws of physics. I suspect that your friends with Apogees, Dali's _____ fill in the blank difficult to drive speaker, will be as surprised as I was when they directly compare their tube amps to SL in their systems.
Everything is relative. They may currently think their tube amp is doing the bass just fine until direct comparison. The VTL's have double the damping factor (sorry numbers sometimes tell valuable stories) of the CAT
and especially in tetrode do the bass better than CAT. Again it is CURRENT that controls bass not WATTS. There is a reason that most tube amp manufacturers will not tell you what their amps damping factor is. I called and spoke with Luke Manley's wife when I was considering the Wotan's.
She refused to tell the damping factor which I later found online. If you do a Google search on damping factor you will find a wealth of information that explains it in understandable scientific terms. It the the bass that costs all the money to get right. Some people are fine without it and love their SET powered ultra sensitive speaker systems. But if the objective is full range done right, damping factor and physics can not be anecdotally explained away. The problem with having heard bass reproduced correctly is the realization that nothing else (the rest of the spectrum) is right without it. FWIW IMHO
Bart