Best Pure Musical Amplifiers (power not important)

[Dr Morbius]

The speakers in the corners are powered up with the Alan Eaton :

 

[Mike]

Revelation Series - Constellation Audio

Step into the world of the Revelation 2 Series by Constellation Audio, where luxury meets cutting-edge audio technology for an unmatched listening experience.

www.constellationaudio.com

This amp really continues to impress. Extremely musical.

Reviews support my findings as well.

 

[stereogeek]

You might consider an EL84 PP amp. They can be quite musical!

That is a great suggestion, el84 amps kind of slipped my mind. I am planning on building an Audio Note EL84 AMP. Their stuff almost always sounds right. Thx.

 

[nicoff]

Reading through the thread, it feels like ‘best’ and ‘most musical’ end up meaning different things for different listeners, depending on taste, room, hearing, and many other personal factors.

 

[2FarGone]

Reading through the thread, it feels like ‘best’ and ‘most musical’ end up meaning different things for different listeners, depending on taste, room, hearing, and many other personal factors.

As with most things audio, or so it seems to me.

 

[atmasphere]

Those amps look like my cup of tea. I need maybe 8 to 12 watts or so........oh well.

That is a great suggestion, el84 amps kind of slipped my mind. I am planning on building an Audio Note EL84 AMP. Their stuff almost always sounds right. Thx.

In thinking about this you may have another option. There is a kind of SET known as a 'parafeed'; a design that sought to solve the bass problem SETs normally have.

It does this by not using a gapped core output transformer, which is the source of the problem. Instead, a gapped choke is used as the plate load of the power tube, allowing DC through to the tube from the power supply, but not allowing audio though the choke back to the supply. The audio instead passes through a coupling cap (usually a few microfarads) to a normal output transformer. Since there is no DC in the core of the output transformer, it can be a normal size, considerably smaller (and so less expensive while also being wider bandwidth at both extremes) by a factor of anything from 1/4 to 1/8th the size you might expect in a conventional SET.

Such a circuit would allow a more powerful tube without the usual downsides (those downsides are why the type 45 power tube is often considered the best sounding although it really has nothing to do with the tube and everything to do with the much smaller output transformer such tubes can use).

The only hiccup seems to be finding an actual parafeed SET of higher power. They are not as common and I've no idea why other than concern about the coupling capacitor. But from what I can gather that doesn't seem the case as most SET users don't seem to know what a parafeed SET is.