New SET mono amplifiers

I am anxious to try them out. They are 45 watt amps and I believe they should power my speakers just fine. I know the 80 WPC T+A gives me way more than enough power, and my classic McIntosh with 100 WPC is also available if/when I get in the mood. Currently I have decided to keep both. The Mc is more on display since it is Museum quality and the T+A will be sitting right in between the Audio Mirrors if I want to do a quick switch.

And I agree, they should look gorgeous.

I do not listen very loud and my room is semi-small, so I am thinking SET mono blocks at 45 watts will probably be enough.
 
Hehe AJ. When they arrive (scheduled for tomorrow)! I am thinking with the Dennis Had pre-amp gorgeous look and glow, these should look real nice!
 
I have listened to these amps for a day now. They are absolutely amazing. Plenty of power... imagining is beyond amazing... very full, very nice bottom end... acoustics, vocals, etc., are stunning.. open, smooth, rich...

I found out a few other things about the amps. I wrote Audio Mirror and asked if I could ask a couple questions even though I purchased them second hand. Vladimir told me everything about the amps:

They have a switch to help with hum if you have an issue with it. I don't and he said usually people do not and it is almost always related to wiring in the house.

They have another switch made to burn in new tubes, or "baked" as Vladimir calls it; should be done for 12-15 hours with new tubes.

He said the pair I have were custom made with both SE and XLR inputs (and a switch to choose). Also, normally there is only one output tap set at 6 ohms which should work for most everything fine, however on the one I have the customer insisted both 4 ohm and 8 ohm taps... the amp is about one year old... has some marks but all in all looks pretty darn impressive.

The amps are auto-bias and have LEDs to indicate if the amp goes into protection mode or indicate which tube has gone bad.
 
AJ Soundfield said:
I would think yes, that's plenty power and they look really nice too. Need some glowing pics now :)
Click to expand...

Ok AJ... Hard to get good photos of the "glow". Couple quick shots, but I would have to get out the tri-pod, etc., to do any better. Was not into doing that :).

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These photos don't really show the "glow", which is kind of spectacular on these amps :D....
 
They are gorgeous... one of these days I have to pull out the tri-pod and get some super low light photos. The "glow" on these amps are stunning. I have also position the McIntosh in between them if I feel like a quick solid state McIntosh fix! I can do a pretty quick switch over.
 
Randy,

It’s always fun to see what you come up with next. I bet these are keepers. Once the SET bug hits, there’s no turning back. Enjoy!
 
Terrific amps Randy!
Congrats and enjoy them for a looooong time!
I'm a convert to tubes since 3 years. Happily so.
 
Hey Bart, glad to join the ranks, and thank you. So far I am loving them. I think I should probably pick up some tubes, to make sure to have backups. :)

The Absolute Sound new issue gave them a recommended component award... love what they had to say... review forth coming!
 
congratulations!! 6c33c tubes are just fantastic output tubes. fwiw, in my experience it pays to get matched sets.

also, you can have a lot of fun rolling the 6sn7 and 6sl7 tubes -- NOS rca tubes are the sweet spot.
 
Nice... and thanks.

I have to get 4x 6sn7 because because both the Dennis Had and the Audio Mirror use them. I also have to pickup 2x 6sl7 for the Audio Mirror and 4x 6c33c... this is to make sure I have extra tubes. The only ones I have extra of at this point is the rectifier for the Had.... I am using a Phillips and also have both a Westinghouse and a JJ as backup. Everything being used in both pieces are NOS currently. the Had has 2x Sylvania 6sn7, and I believe both of the other tubes in the Audio Mirror are GE, but I am not 100% positive on that.
 
I have been listening to these gorgeous SET amps for about a week now. Yesterday I re-hooked my McIntosh amp, more or less as a test. The Mc sounds wonderful; very much what I would call the Mc sound. I could easily live with this amplifier without worry.

But, compared to the Audio Mirror amps there is definitely something missing. Trying to put my finger on it... The SET amps just sound more natural, insane sound stage, and depth. Instruments just sound how they should. Not that the McIntosh does not, but the SET just takes it to a different level. If I were to put a single phrase to it I would say that the Audio Mirror just sounds more musical!

I really like the sound of the McIntosh... but I instantly noticed the difference and sat there listening trying to put my finger exactly on what I was hearing; and what I was hearing was just so much more inviting, smooth, hearing the impact on the piano strings being hit, feeling the natural wood of a stand up base...

Very nice indeed!
 
A few guys from our audio club came over the other day. We listened for quite some time and they were all blown away by the Audio Mirror amps. They felt the separation and imaging is simply stunning. Very natural and they could not believe how much impact and fullness there was in the low end. They did not expect that from SET amplifiers.

The one thing that they all agreed on was that the system sounded better running the amps straight off the T+A, not using the Dennis Had unit as a pre-amp. One described it as more dynamic, like the Had was making things a bit too mild or holding the amps back somewhat... more air, better presentation, etc. So the Dragon Inspire goes back to being a fantastic headphone amp. It did a nice job, but obviously the pre-amp outputs were added as an after thought. Not an integral part of the design from the get go.
 
I'm not familiar with the T&A but I assumed you were talking the DAC and it has a preamp built-in.
Have you tried running audio mirror with any other preamp in front
 
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