Single-Ended Triode (SET) Amplifier Revolution of the 1990s. Did it really happen? Was it Successful?

[bonzo75]

Was there really a SET amplifier and horn speaker revolution in the 90s? Was anyone around in this hobby in the 1990s to witness it? Was it successful? What was the outcome and impact?

Debatable. In the first part, they sent a bot, microstrip, back in time to upset this revolution. However some ordinary music lovers got together and defeated him. They planted a bomb that meant each of his posts kept imploding.

In the sequel, he goes back, looks like the guy from the first part, but this time he has a SET not an evil machine. However, like most sequels, ends up in disappointment.

There were many battles then fought with the bots but with so many sequels no one is paying attention and has lost count

 

[kjartanb]

Revolution or not. My inspirators where Hiraga in the 80s and later Joe Roberts and his Magazine in the 90s. Bought my first hifi system in 1975, dreamt of valves and horns through the 80s but could not affortd them (althoug i got some effective loudspeakers - Mini Onken). Got som pse2A3 amps in Hong Kong in the late 90s to drive my DIY Lowther Mau IV horns. Had them for over 10 years. Tryed to go back to "normal" speakers, but now have effective speakers again (Altec 604s and Altec A5s with 1505Bs multicells), 300B SETs, PP KT88 & EL34 valve amps, DIY Pass mosfets, SITs, chip amps, hypex, IcePower etc. Have all the flavours to play with.

 

[kjartanb]

I must add that there where many building horns in Denmark (where I lived from '80-'91) in the late 70s early 80s as example the DIY Duelund (yes that Duelund ) concrete horn which where similar to Lowther acoustas. I also heard DIY Acousta horns in 1980 with Coral speakers.Great detail and dynamics, but bass shy.

 

[Hear Here]

In the late ‘90s, after looking for a simple sound system to replace my NAD driven Thiel speaker system

Ha ha! By contrast, 3 years ago I decided to look for an equally good or better sounding solid state amp to replace my 845 monos and other SETs I'd been using for the previois 15 years. I home auditioned a dozen amps in the £3-8K price range and settled on a NAD! No doubt a far cry from your NAD, but a Master Series M33. Now I listen to far more music as it's on much of the day rather than just when I want to concentrate on listening to music. I was certainly not expecting a Class D amp (Purifi Eigentakt) to sound better than the Class A Accuphase, AB Mark Levinson, GamuT, etc and all the others. Occasionally I think I'd like to still use the PX-25 amp for some music, but otherwise no regtets.

 

[morricab]

Debatable. In the first part, they sent a bot, microstrip, back in time to upset this revolution. However some ordinary music lovers got together and defeated him. They planted a bomb that meant each of his posts kept imploding.

In the sequel, he goes back, looks like the guy from the first part, but this time he has a SET not an evil machine. However, like most sequels, ends up in disappointment.

There were many battles then fought with the bots but with so many sequels no one is paying attention and has lost count

I think I have heard this plot somewhere before... nah! must be a coincidence...

 

[je2a3]

This was my hifi set up in the mid/late 90s, which Joe Roberts featured in the Homebrewer section of Sound Practices Issue 17.

The Altec 755Cs (above) + Altec 755A (in the pdf) are now in Silbatone cabinets as pictured below. They alternate in my near-field set up.

My main system now. The speakers are an homage to the Western Electric 753C using the Altec 414A + 802D driver + 32C horn, which I christened Altec 753C.



My DIY preamp and amp circuits have evolved a little bit but I'm still using the same nickel core Tamura and Tango OPTs I acquired in the 90s. I still build amps in the classical style, inspired by Isamu Asano so I can listen to pre-WWII tubes I pick up at hamfests and radio shows. But I'm focusing more on my LP collection.



It's all about the music!

 

[Rensselaer]

This was my hifi set up in the mid/late 90s, which Joe Roberts featured in the Homebrewer section of Sound Practices Issue 17.

The Altec 755Cs (above) + Altec 755A (in the pdf) are now in Silbatone cabinets as pictured below. They alternate in my near-field set up.

My main system now. The speakers are an homage to the Western Electric 753C using the Altec 414A + 802D driver + 32C horn, which I christened Altec 753C.

View attachment 99697

My DIY preamp and amp circuits have evolved a little bit but I'm still using the same nickel core Tamura and Tango OPTs I acquired in the 90s. I still build amps in the classical style, inspired by Isamu Asano so I can listen to pre-WWII tubes I pick up at hamfests and radio shows. But I'm focusing more on my LP collection.

View attachment 99698

It's all about the music!

Man! Now that is what I'm talking about! You got both Garrard's, home made plinths, SET's (or valves anyway), a great listening room with lots of vinyl and those ... say, what are those little things in the two vertical racks behind the right speaker?

 

[je2a3]

Man! Now that is what I'm talking about! You got both Garrard's, home made plinths, SET's (or valves anyway), a great listening room with lots of vinyl and those ... say, what are those little things in the two vertical racks behind the right speaker?

Jazz CD rack of titles I can't afford on LP, played through thrift store found CD players serving as transport > DIY nosTDA1541tube DAC.

 

[Walter66]

Debatable. In the first part, they sent a bot, microstrip, back in time to upset this revolution. However some ordinary music lovers got together and defeated him. They planted a bomb that meant each of his posts kept imploding.

In the sequel, he goes back, looks like the guy from the first part, but this time he has a SET not an evil machine. However, like most sequels, ends up in disappointment.

There were many battles then fought with the bots but with so many sequels no one is paying attention and has lost count

As I'm active in this audio hobby since the 1980's, and passively had great impressions of good sound since the early 1970's, I can assure that in germoney there was much innovation towards triode amps with tubes and high efficiency speakers in the early 1990's.

It all was initiated by Jean Hiraga in france and its demonstrations of old Cinema sound systems from the 1930's in a Paris cinema.

There was this Paris audio store called "La maison de L' AUDIOPHILE " and they sold tubes, parts and triode amps.
From there it spread about europe. In this link, there is a story about it to be found:
http://truefi.blogspot.com/2015/10/30-years-of-revelation-i.html

 

[Walter66]

This was my hifi set up in the mid/late 90s, which Joe Roberts featured in the Homebrewer section of Sound Practices Issue 17.



The Altec 755Cs (above) + Altec 755A (in the pdf) are now in Silbatone cabinets as pictured below. They alternate in my near-field set up.



My main system now. The speakers are an homage to the Western Electric 753C using the Altec 414A + 802D driver + 32C horn, which I christened Altec 753C.

Thanks so much for sharing those infos and pics. I can recall this b/w 755 OB pic from the SP issue in the 1990's.

Your 753C looks great, love the sound of the original WE speakers, in fact they were Frankensteins, too because they had the Jensen woofer in it.
The original WE can sound fabulous transparent and homogenic, one of the best speaker designs of all times. It's very rare to hear those speakers. One can learn a lot from them.
But anyway, love your style of gear and the huge record collection. I'm on the same trip but it needs much time because the circuits are so demanding to develop and the parts very rare. But the result compensates for the trouble and the gear could not be bought. Very nice system.

 

[je2a3]

Thanks so much for sharing those infos and pics. I can recall this b/w 755 OB pic from the SP issue in the 1990's.

Your 753C looks great, love the sound of the original WE speakers, in fact they were Frankensteins, too because they had the Jensen woofer in it.
The original WE can sound fabulous transparent and homogenic, one of the best speaker designs of all times. It's very rare to hear those speakers. One can learn a lot from them.
But anyway, love your style of gear and the huge record collection. I'm on the same trip but it needs much time because the circuits are so demanding to develop and the parts very rare. But the result compensates for the trouble and the gear could not be bought. Very nice system.

Thanks for the kind words!

I heard a couple of Western Electric 753s as well as a single WE757A back in the 90s. Even then, they were beyond my budget. But the sound of those WE 2-way monitors lingered in my sonic memory which paved the way to the Altec 753C homage.

 

[cjfrbw]

Debatable. In the first part, they sent a bot, microstrip, back in time to upset this revolution. However some ordinary music lovers got together and defeated him. They planted a bomb that meant each of his posts kept imploding.

Time travel to undo the past popularity of horns and flea tubes is a viable marketing strategy for the lovers of box speakers and humungus solid state amplifiers. What do wormholes sound like, and are they tuned for audiophiles?

 

[Walter66]

Thanks for the kind words!

I heard a couple of Western Electric 753s as well as a single WE757A back in the 90s. Even then, they were beyond my budget. But the sound of those WE 2-way monitors lingered in my sonic memory which paved the way to the Altec 753C homage.

In mid 1990's I owned kind of a pair of WE 757A monitor clones. Cabinets were exactly made after WE plans, horns were KS12025 instead of 12027, the woofers 728B and 713B drivers. Problem was, everyone was after the aluminum 713C drivers and the others had only phenolic dias.

So the highs didn't had that sparkle and didn't add much to the energy of the 728B. In fact, it was hard to tell if they played at all. That could be a good or bad sign, but to me, the system without the horns should sound much different compared to it when the horns are engaged. But the horns gave a good midrange with only very limited highs reproduction.

Never had the chance to put my hands on 713C's as they were quite rare and expensive. I swapped this system for bigger Westrex types of woofers and Lansing 287 field drivers. It was more appropriate for what I aimed for at that time.

The WE system was a good monitor, but I wanted no closed cab speaker, so tried with a more open sounding system. That was a success and it could be learned what sonic differences, strengths and weaknesses both could show.

It's hard to reach original WE sound quality, they made a science out of this theme, long before many others did. What we had lost without this company is only known to the people, who auditioned their original products. It's very much, I know today. Very glad to had the chance to know the sound of those speakers, today it's much harder as the parts become nearly unobtanium.

 

[je2a3]

I never had the chance to hear the 713B but was fortunate enough to hear the 753A and 753C. The 753A was equipped with the 722A driver (on the 32A) which, AFAIK, has a phenolic diaphragm that rolls off around 6.5kHz. That's why it needed the 752A horn super tweeter to augment the top end. The 753A had a more syrupy/mellow flavor compared to the 753C which employed the 713A driver with aluminum diaphragm + 32A and KS12004 15" woofer.

Perhaps an Altec 3000 tweeter would have helped your 728B/KS12025/713B set up in the 90s?

 

[Walter66]

Unfortunately, this Altec was'nt available to me and the aim was to create a WE speaker as original as possible. It was pre Internet times. Unbelievable today. 713A would have been OK, too.

 

[guyser]

I first heard a serious Single Ended amp in 1985, a Be Yamamura AIR 211, which to me, then, was a revelation.




Soon afterwards I'd built myself a stereo PX4 amp & was using that at home with Lowther Audiovector Auditoriums. But there weren’t many other horn loaded speaker options available in the UK at that time. Maybe big Tannoys or the Vitavox CN191 if you could find them. The activities of Japanese audiophiles recreating & treasuring the audio of the 1920’s & 30’s were being replicated in Europe by the likes of Jean Hiraga (and Yamamura) I visited the Paris HiFi Show in the late 80’s or early 90’s where at the Maison de L’audiophile they were playing repro WE91 amps with a very impressive 4 way Onken system (below). So while SET amplifiers certainly made a comeback in the 80's/90's there weren’t really many commercially made horn speakers with high sensitivity available to partner them.

 

[Cycling Nut]

In the 90's I used to design and build my own SET DHT amps. I played with the 10Y, 50, 2a3, 300b and 845.
I got to know JC Morrisson, Herb, Don, Mike Lefevre, Komuro, John Camille and others. I learned a lot from those guys.
Now I listen to Benchmark Media amp and pre, I love the extremely low distortion and extreme low noise.
Using VOT and Edgar horns, with the triode amps, I loved the dynamics. So I built a clone of the Geddes Nathan that uses a 10" oblate spheroid waveguide to use with Benchmark.

 

[chet atkins]

This was my hifi set up in the mid/late 90s, which Joe Roberts featured in the Homebrewer section of Sound Practices Issue 17.

The Altec 755Cs (above) + Altec 755A (in the pdf) are now in Silbatone cabinets as pictured below. They alternate in my near-field set up.

My main system now. The speakers are an homage to the Western Electric 753C using the Altec 414A + 802D driver + 32C horn, which I christened Altec 753C.

View attachment 99697

My DIY preamp and amp circuits have evolved a little bit but I'm still using the same nickel core Tamura and Tango OPTs I acquired in the 90s. I still build amps in the classical style, inspired by Isamu Asano so I can listen to pre-WWII tubes I pick up at hamfests and radio shows. But I'm focusing more on my LP collection.

View attachment 99698

It's all about the music!

did you have a few vids on youtube years ago playing gene ammons hittin the jug

 

[je2a3]

... say, what are those little things in the two vertical racks behind the right speaker?

Sorry I just realized that you were pertaining to a pair of Dennis Had's AES 5.2 speakers (later known as Soliloquy).

 

[je2a3]

did you have a few vids on youtube years ago playing gene ammons hittin the jug

I have that LP but I don't remember uploading a video of that.

The only video I uploaded in the 2000s was my mono hifi with an Altec 605B in an open baffle.