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In Reply to: RE: Help me pick SET monoblocks posted by RGA on August 21, 2017 at 19:43:46
If I come across a bit snarky but I just finished covering the California Audio Show where I often use Guns and Roses' Knockin on Heaven's Door and Big Band Jazz at very high levels and Audio Note's room with their speakers that have lower rated Sensitivity and amps with lower watt ratings had more bass and volume than higher sensitive horns and amps double or quadruple the power output ratings in the same sized rooms. The AN played louder with deeper bass and no audible distortion. I was at a 95dB baseline hitting over 100dB peaks without a hint of any audible distortion. I felt bad that the show runners all left the room to protect their hearing but for the money - you better be able to play rock music and big band and whatever else at loud levels.
But even with this youtube as poor as youtube sounds you can still hear the OTO (4 undistorted watts) driving the AN J(not in corners) so around 90dB sensitive) and the OTO is probably the "darkest" sounding of all AN amplifiers aside from the IZero.
Follow Ups:
RGA,
I was brought up on Stan Kenton turned up to eleven. Today I listen at a 75db base volume. I figure 98db potential is enough for me. I think I have your old Js that came to me from the lower mainland. I am looking at getting a 2A3 amp for my friends LaScalas. I'd have to think about parallel 2A3s for myself. I want to be sure that I get something high enough on the food chain to evaluate the SET approach fairly.
I'm a minimalist so the single output tube approach is attractive. I just need more education before I decide.
I don't want to dissuade anyone from more power - you don't want to spend a lot only to have it never be able to play loud. But I put sound quality above volume as to the order of things. Like when I tried the OTO with the B&W N801 and Quads - they sounded vastly better with the OTO than they do with Krell, Classe, Bryston, EL34s, KT88s. BUT the amp could not drive them loud enough to justify the price. SO yes power/sensitivity is an issue.
The trick is to find amplifiers that offer high power that also sound as good as lower powered tube amps(SETS). IME that doesn't exist. Which then rules out all low efficiency speakers from being acceptable.
High power SET is expensive - my old LM 219IA is one of the cheaper best offerings. But going higher efficiency isn't so expensive. And for whatever reason the AN J and E seem to defy specifications and measurements. The only other possible reason I can think as to why a 10 watt AN amp can make the 93DB AN pelt volume while other speakers rated 100dB and 20 watts distort is the quality of AN amps transformers or the kind of speaker design being lossy and minimal damping and using the corner to serve as an extension of the speaker.
The problem with suggesting AN amps second hand is that they tend to go up in value over the years. I can sell my OTO Phono SE for about $600 more than I paid for it back in 2003. Largely because the new OTO has more than doubled in price since then.
If you already have a preamp - this all becomes easy because you can try a bunch of different power amps. Have a big SS for parties and 2A3 for quality music listening. I tend to prefer parallel 300B and 2a3 - perhaps because they do possess more drive, grip and power.
From my price list which is over a year old and provided to me when reviewing the I Zero - it shows the P2SE as $3,650 (18 watts). The Empress Monoblocks (8 watts) start at $5,790 for the pair. The former can be found used but the latter is far less likely as it is a newer product and not as many around.
AN gets quite expensive very fast after this. Empress Silver jumps to $8,000 and the Signature versions jumps to $12,200. And this is the least expensive of their 2a3 amps. They have two other higher level amps in the Neiro($25,000) and Kageki ($64,000) So gets crazy fast.
Surely you're not claiming that 4 watts driving 90dB speakers chases attendees out of the rooom? You're describing low efficiency speakers driven by a low power amplifier, and the inevitable result is SPL That's more than an order of magnitude below live levels. C'mon guys, these fundamental concepts have been well understood for many decades.
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Buy Chinese. Bury freedom.
I am claiming what I have heard - which AUdio Note system have you heard with the volume cranked up? Peter Qvortrup has been selling his high but not exceptionally high efficiency speakers with his 8 watt amps for close to 30 years and to people who generally have money and who have generally owned plenty of high power SS amps. So unless he is managing to fool a vast number of people including audio equipment reviewers like myself who have heard top of the line 1000 watt amplifiers and numerous $50,000+ horns then something is amiss.
At CAS I auditioned the Volti Audio Rival horn speakers (100dB sensitive) and with 20 watt Border Patrol amps - when pushed there was audible distortion.
The AN E/Spe He is rated as 97dB sensitive (by AN). One speaker free standing, the speaker was measured as 92dB sensitive by Stereophile (so factor in 2 speakers and in corners and in room then 97dB is accurate).
The speakers played louder with no distortion than the Volti.
In the case of the AN J/Spe - the speaker is rated as 93dB sensitive but unlike the E it presents an easier impedance load not dipping below 5 ohms.
93dB @ 1watt
96dB @ 2 watts
99dB @ 4 watts
102dB@ 8 watts
105dB@ 16 watts (AN amps can go a good 50% above their rated specs.
Most people most of the time listen at the listening chair below 80dB. It is fairly loud at 70dB. To those of us who still have quality hearing ability left that is. I could make the keyboard on my desk rumble with the OTO/J combo so I am not sure how much louder you need for it to be.
This is supposed to be about quality of music not quantity of SPL. Certainly there is a limit to what this can do - the J can after all handle 150 watts so one is welcome to buy a Rotel RB 1090 which is capable of 1kilowatt and can be had on the used market for $600. It will certainly play louder. I'm not against power - these days power is dirt cheap.
This is why my general preference is for preamp and power amp that way you can run the comparisons yourself. Have the 8 watt monoblocks and the 500 watt monoblocks and see.
Just like this video where the show runner had an 8 watt monoblock and 160 watt monoblocks. And makes not about the difference in power.
"93dB @ 1watt
96dB @ 2 watts
99dB @ 4 watts
102dB@ 8 watts
105dB@ 16 watts "
Those numbers are nearly meaningless. For one thing, music isn't an RMS sine wave. It has a tremendous dynamic range. Then there's music's wide variation of energy content over frequency. For most program material - and this certainly applies to orchestra - a passage that generates 16 watts in the amplifier at 1kHz (1 kHz being the frequency for which most speaker systems are rated) will require much more power than that at lower frequencies to avoid clipping. In fact, an amplifier that creates 105 dB average SPL on music with a 93 dB speaker will likely need to be capable of producing 100 watts or better. And that's assuming the listener is sitting 1 meter away, a fact conveniently ignored by the "data" above. Move out to a realistic listening distance and you can easily double or triple that number.
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Buy Chinese. Bury freedom.
The distance from the speaker depends on the speaker too however. I took a measurement of the E at 1 meter and 2 meters and the volume at the SPL was virtually identical - a very slight half a dB drop off. Another speaker dropped by 4dB in the same room.
A stable impedance loudspeaker isn't requesting more power from the amplifier at different frequencies the way other speakers do. So a loudspeaker that is a flat 5 ohm speaker is 5ohms at 25hz and at 1khz. If this speaker is 92dB it is a VASTLY easier speaker to drive than a speaker that is 100dB sensitive but drop to 0.5ohms at 25hz through 100hz but is 9ohms the rest of the way. This speaker may play louder but it will suck anytime there is bass.
People who have not had direct experience with the AN J and the OTO specifically really have no truck with me. I lived with the combo for 13 years and had I not moved overseas I'd still have the combo. I listen to trance, metal, full scale classical, percussion. There was no issue with volume level, or bass.
At the California Audio Show the AN Room played as loud and louder with less distortion than pretty much any other room. SO you kind of have to believe what the ears are telling you. One of the other most powerful sounding rooms was sporting a 4 watt Whammerdyne 2a3 amp. And that amp was driving a pair of speakers with eight 15 inch woofers. Meanhwile the rooms sporting big Pass Labs amps for the most part sounded anemic.
And heard the AN rig. Plus I've heard An gear in a number of settings from home to storefronts including at True Sound who brought the rig to CAS7. Most importantly to me forming my opinion is that I owned the ANE Spe HE for a number of years and used it in my all AN system at home. Granted, the ANE isn't the ANJ, but they use the same drivers so I think there is a lot of similarity.
Anyway, I think both RGA and Triode are right. As Triode infers there must be plenty of distortion to reach, say, 100dB with an amp that puts out single digits cleanly into low 90's dB speakers. But, as I found at home, the speakers play at near insane levels without noticeable distortion on puny amps. I don't know why for sure, but getting to the OP's question, I suggest an AN amp for AN speakers.
Used conquest at 8watts with single 300b per channel should make you quite happy. Distortion free? No way. But happy.
As Triode puts it, there is a decided benefit from going to much higher sensitivity with tiny amps. That's why I got pulled into Altecs. But that doesn't change the fact that the AN speakers are satisfying with AN amps beyond what some might expect.
Best,
Doug
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