Posted by Wayne Parham [ 65.69.121.112 ] on July 11, 2004 at 22:35:39:
Yesterday, the Great Plains Audio Club meeting was held at my house, and we really had a great time. Chuck Adamson made some brisket, and it was spectacular. In attendence was Akhilesh Bajaj, Phil Wilson, Forrest Merrill, Bill Wassilak, Chuck Adamson, Rachelle Randall, Katya Soden, John Barnes, Mike Anderson, Alona and I.
The amps we reviewed included Akhilesh's Asusa (left), the Stoetkit (right), my Paramours (behind) and Phil Wilson's Zen Select amp (not shown). We also listened to Bill Wassilak's Leslie amplifier, but each of the others was a current production tube amplifier kit in the same price range, so they were used for comparison.
The speakers we used for review were my seven π loudspeakers. I have a hard time keeping fine hardwood π midhorns in stock, so these were MDF. The π cornerhorn base unit in these has an Eminence Omega 15, which is notoriously hard for low power SET amps to drive. So between the music material chosen and the speaker load, this was a difficult test for each of the amplifiers.
We listened to each amplifier using the same complex orchestral musical passage, which was pretty demanding. Honestly, you would probably expect two watt SET amps to have a difficult time with this kind of music, but they all did very well. Each of the amps except the Stoetkit was a SET design, and they all sounded very nice. I think most people would be very happy with any of them.
We unanimously agreed that all the amplifiers performed admirably. In fact, the general consensus was that no amplifier was significantly better or worse, they were all quite good. Each has it's subtle strengths and weaknesses, but none were glaring in either a positive or negative sense.
I was pleased with the performance of each of them. I personally prefer the Stoetkit, and others did as well. But this is mostly because it is capable of greater output. It sounds great too, so it isn't just that it's louder. At the one watt level we were using them at, they all sounded pretty similar, really.
The Zen Select did what most people know it for, which is nice midrange. But much to my surprise, it had no trouble at all delivering the bass. It sounded very good across the spectrum.
The Paramours are generally a little bit noisier, but they have strong bass. But in this case, the bass seemed to be about the same as the Zen, maybe a little stronger, and the hum was very low.
The Asusa is a real sleeper, and I wish it was still made. It has bass as strong as the Paramours, and it sounded to me like it had a little more control than either of the other SET's.
But for my ears, the Stoetkit had the best control in the bass, and even though these days the SET configuration is often given the reputation of having pure midrange, the Stoetkit sounded best there too. Not by a mile or anything, but I still liked it best. And like I said earlier, the best part is that it delivers four times more power, so it can be run harder and louder without strain. That's important to me, particularly with complex music.
For those that are interested, Akhilesh Bajaj wrote a detailed review of the Stoetkit on his website.
We also listened to Bill Wassilak's tube amp that he rescued from an old Leslie speaker. He mentioned that he might use it for a subwoofer amp, and it sounds like it will work well for that. It haas plenty of power and the treble is rolled off. That probably worked well for organs, even helping to have reduced treble by serving to reduce organ key clicks.
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