Hello!
Complete newb here,
I have been very fortunate enough to pick up an original SE34I. I have been trying to find as much information on it as i can but am coming up a little short. I still cant find the white paper of the original anywhere. Through one of the posts here I was able to find out that you can roll KT77's into them. So I was curious since it is self biasing if you could potentially run both EL34's and KT77's at the same time in either series or alternating order. Now I have found little information about this or if it's potentially harmful other than regarding guitar amps which seems doable. Does anyone have any information on this amp at all? or a copy of the original white paper on it? The manual still confuses me so you are really dealing with someone new. I am still learning the terminology of it all but Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks!

Hello Kedros!

Here are some statements from Steve I have collected.

The original SE34I had the option of running 2 or 4 output tubes and a variety of switches that gave the user control over the signature of the amp.  When using all 4 output tubes in it's paralleled configuration the amp gave a healthy six watts per channel into 8 ohms.  However, in it's series configuration using all 4 tubes the power was reduced to around 2.5 watts per channel, but with tons of headroom.  
     The overwhelmingly popular configuration for this amp was the series output configuration running all 4 tubes because it usually sounded better than the parallel configuration.  Many owners also enjoyed running the amp with only 2 output tubes (1 per channel).  This single tube mode had exactly the same 2.5 watts per channel of output, but offered a degree of clarity only found in single tube designs.

     The original SE34I design was inspired by my experiences with the old Macs.  In a word, they were forgiving.  In fact they often made music sound better than it really was - given the limitations of the source components and recordings.  I've always thought this to be an outstanding "real-world" accomplishment.  
I have seen heavy trends in audiophiles to spend most of the money on speakers, amps and cables and have to make compromises on the source components.  The source component is the most important component to get right.  It would be better to hear a $7500.00 CD player on a $750.00 amp than it would be to hear a 750.00 CD player on a $7500.00 amp any day.
     Being a realist (and understanding what really happens in the majority of listening rooms) I wanted to offer an amplifier with that magic ability to make what comes out of it sound better than what went into it.  Without getting into how difficult that is, I was successful in achieving a very forgiving nature, yet with enough resolution to captivate the serious audiophile.  - Steve Deckert


I will dig through my files and see if I can find more.

Welcome to the forum.

Brian

Thank you for the replies everyone!

So my understanding is each red and black output set on the back has it's own output signal given from each individual tube. so you could technically run 4 speakers (one off of each tube) or 2 speakers by bridging them (2 tubes per output) or if your speakers can bi-amp you could run all four individually still with two outputs to each individual speaker.
So here are the dump questions. Why are thar only 3 input tubes? Do they output the same to each output tube? What do the three switches on the front do? I know they change the sound, but How do they change the sound? Is that what you mean what you say running it parallel and series?

This also leads me back to my original question if each tube runs an individual output. Could you then run different output tubes at the same time such as the EL34's and KT77's. For example if I had 4 heresy ii speakers run through each output (all 4). Could I then run a pair off of the el34's and then a pair off of the kt77's?
The same then I guess goes for the input tubes. if it can roll three different types of input tubes could I tech use all three at the same time?

Thanks!




Also Steve is you're reading this. I am sure you already know this but this amp is amazing and absolute beast. I am very, very happy with it and the sound. Thank you for the work that you and your team does.