The next test was the WE300B tubes.  This tube caught us both off guard coming off the Cryotone 300B-WC sound.  We played the same sax track that we just marveled over with the Cryotone and it sounded like a different track.  In fact I had to ask three times if it was the same track.  This is because the sax that was almost in my lap was now farther back with a touch less body, and there was a piano and drum kit equally presented with the sax that I frankly didn't even notice before.  Besides that the room of the recording was rendered perfectly. This is why I thought it was a different track, because this time there was a room, a piano and a drum kit that I hadn't noticed before.

After about an hour of head shaking on every track we agreed the tube was worth every penny of it's asking price.  I put it above the Japanese tube. Price on the WE300B is I think about $700 ea.  Exquisite is the only word that comes to mind.  Still the Cryotone I think would be chosen over it by many because most people don't have a listening room that would support the sound stage the WE created which is what caused the piano and drum kit to appear.  So in my house instead of the listening room, I would lean heavily towards the Cryotone.

Supplemental tube rolling in the driver stage or introduction of a preamp with the right tube selection could have pushed or pulled the sound of all of these tubes in any of the described directions.  This is why we used this particular amp with no preamp to try to hear just the output tubes themselves.

Sadly all of these tubes require a couple hundred hours of break in and none of them are there yet.  The WE300B has the most hours on it but it's still shy of 200 hrs.  That means that all these impressions can change substantially.

-Steve

The $50 tube... listening to it right now...



We both agreed that this tube is well good enough to show of the amplifier and we like it enough that we could easily live with it.  The inner layers are somewhat less compared to the exotic tubes, but unless you heard that you would never know.  We think this tube will make the difference for some buyers as it will keep the cost down without tanking the fidelity or performance.  By FAR the best buy we have encountered with the 300B tubes.

As for how it stacks up against the others, we both would easily choose this over the Gold Lion 300B at $400 pair.

Steve

10:37 PM

Before we started listening to the Sarah 300B amp today, I had Randy hear it on the 88dB House Speakers.  He was relatively stunned.

Then I showed him the 274B from PSVANE that I found created a lucid image and insane stage, but was spongey on the bass.  This is why I changed to the PSVANE 5AR4 because on those demanding speakers with the amp at full power to drive them, the 274B was too soft.

I also plugged it into the UFO25 and as I think I mentioned the OA3's were blinking at half volume.  These two experiences pretty much destined the tube to live in the box for the rest of it's life.  But, since we're exploring so many possibilities, I decided to show Randy what I meant about the tube getting spongey.  So we put it in and couldn't hear anything wrong with it.  It was fairly wonderful.  What changed is the load on the amp.  Now instead of 88dB we were at 98 dB and the amp doesn't even know it's on.  The bass is tight as a brick, well almost, until you put the 5AR4 in and then however tight it was gets tighter.

Anyway, it is a wonderful sounding rectifier under these current conditions in the Sarah 300B.



In combination with the glob perf plate 300B from TJ it was simply great.  Hard to pull out these tubes to try other ones, because the sound was so right...

One of the most exciting reads in years!
After reading this report, I would like to hear the Cryotone process on the Takatsuki TA-300Bs. Perhaps it would make them a bit creamier without loosing the resolution.

Great stuff!  
Brian

Takatsuki TA-300Bs got a lot more creamy when they had a 12AU7 driving them instead of a 12AT7 in Randy's amp. The rawness melted.  Randy and I both suspect that when that tube breaks-in it will be a true force to reckon with because it already is and with only about 80 hours on it as I understand it.

That said, based on what I hear in common with all Cryotone tubes is more meat on the bone.  Better density and focus at the same time.  I can't imagine any tube taking a step backwards with more of that.  

Sadly it takes a lot of a particular tube to Cryo treat it they way he does... test, listen, adjust temperature ramps, treat another, test, listen, compare, treat another, adjust the ramps, repeat over and over and over.  At $1700 and up for a pair it's just not possible. Same with WE300B. Don't expect to see that one treated either.

I can see why he likes the thicker glass of the JJ tube and as I said before the sound is what most people are looking for in a 300B amp. It was the juiciest midrange of them all, proud and dense, front and center.  The stock JJ by comparison sounded a little washed out.

Steve

Thank you, Steve for what you said about Cryo treating the Takatsuki. That helps my understanding a lot.

This must indeed be a beautiful sounding amp.

Brian

Steve, what was this "sax track" you have been refering to ?
Thanks

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I agree, that was the case for me also, music first, but not anymore, I need something more probably.....and I don't gather recording just because they sound great either, I just mean I have a tendancy not to reject these recordings and even listen to them from time to time, which could never happen before.

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You are not alone. I know guys (and they are always guys) who have been buying Dark Side of the Moon and Kind of Blue over and over again for 30+ years. Each time a new "ultimate" remastering comes out they are first in line. And there is nothing wrong with that, those recordings do sound fantastic on a good system.

But I'm like Lon, I listen to a lot of different music, and some of my favorites are from the 40's and early 50's and even back into the 30's and 20's. The great thing about my system is it wrings every drop of musical goodness out of my old recordings and sounds fantastic when I put on Kind of Blue. Which I admit I have been doing more often since I found Decware, just because it sounds soooooooooo gooooooooood.

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to add my 2 cents without getting too far into the weeds ...

My custom built 300B amplifier sounds about as similar to most of the "typical" 300B amps I have heard as "chalk and cheese".
It sounds more like a 2A3 amp on steroids .....

So, for the new Decware 300B amp to get my attention tells me that it is VERY, VERY good indeed.

The 100.00 Chinese 300B tubes were a total stunner in my opinion.
If the quality control and reliability are good, these tubes are a no brainer.

As you might guess, I am a dyed in the wool open baffle fan and almost every "box" speaker that I have heard disappoints me in the low frequency range.  However, the Decware HDTSilver8's and the "house speakers" were an amazing and pleasant surprise .....
It is a testament to Steve's ability and instincts as a loudspeaker designer to create a multi-driver box speaker (the house speakers) that has absolutely NO distracting colorations that I could detect.
Well done .....

I can pretty much guarantee that the attendees of Decware Fest 2022 will be in for a treat and have the envelope pushed as to what is possible in the world of high resolution, truly musical audio.

Happy listening,
Randy in Caintuck

I'm so glad the Decware Demi-God got to be in the evaluating blend! Adds some real "street cred" to the listening thread. Thanks Randy!

One question though for Steve and/or you: that great fifty dollar tube. . . doesn't seem to be manufactured any longer. Is that true?

I've kind of been trying to stay away from this thread, but I'm starting to feel like I woke up at 8:00 p.m. and heard a pretty big party in progress next door. It's getting hard to ignore it.

Is this amp  going to make my dual UFO25 order obsolete? SET, yes? Just give me the bad (or good?) news now. Main reason for monoblocked UFOs was more watts.

I got about two years to go before delivery so maybe I can even get the MkII. <sigh>

The fact that Steve and Randy have been listening with the HDTs lately is very encouraging. The comments are very positive from Randy, who is a confirmed OB enthusiasts, of the unboxed sound of the HDTs.

Also a firm believer of OBs natural sound, I am looking forward to hearing the HDTs at Decfest along with all the open baffle offerings. I have purchased plans for the HDTs and hope the offering does not disappoint because HDTs will fit physically well into future plans.

I have actually only heard one 300B amp, twice. It was a Cary integrated, and first I heard it in a home that my father and I visited of one of his Swarthmore college roommates that he was reconnecting with. It was a fabulous home built overlooking a riverbed. He had an amazing system and at the heart of it was this amp, fed by a very expensive tuner at the time. It sounded great, the man told me it was "single-ended" not "push-pull" and I had just a tiny bit of that intriguing knowledge before hand. That led me to looking up SET amps I could afford. . . and I found Steve's site in time to order what turned out to be his 27th amp.

I heard that same Cary model again in Austin years later than the first time and it was in a less "mega-buck" system and I had a Decware Select at the time and I liked it, but also liked my Select, and I am not sure that the Cary had the best speaker matching possible. But I still was fascinated with the 300B sound and wondered at the possibilities.

I'm still wondering and will while I wait.

Quote:


The big difference is the mono blocks cost approximately what a single stereo amp costs, and have similar power output. So, if you don't need the power you get the advantages of mono blocks (short speaker cables, separate power supplies, channel isolation) for only a little more $$$ than a stereo amp. This is what Steve says:

These 'mono' amplifiers are essentially our basic model split in half, so there are no substantial gains in power because it's not about that ~ it's about transparency.


2 two channel amps (obviously) cost twice as much a one, but more than double the power when mono'd. And if you want balanced amps you need 4 channels, i.e. 2 two channel amps.

that CH 'return of the candyman' is a killer album and Im lucky enough to own it on vinyl ( which Ive never played) . When i finally take it for a spin I know it's gonna be a gas as I mostly listen to it on my ipod.

Scott Amendola is on drums on that recording who I consider one the greatest contemporary drummers of our time. Having seen him live many times that dude's for real. I bet that 300b amp brought him to larger then life

Steve,

That is really great news. Thank you for making this happen and to the principals at Western Electric. Outstanding!!!

HK

UPDATE 08/15/2022

For the past few days the amp has sounded... off.  Something about it was wrong.  Getting lean.  Figures.  BUT, what actually happened....

I believe sometime last week my CXNv2 updated itself (firmware) and went from sounding great to off.  This is an inevitable outcome of firmware that by definition begs to be constantly updated and jacked with.  I must be one of the few left on planet with the ability to leave it alone when it works well.

So this evening I decided to see what was going on and switched from the CXNv2's digital output to the USB output from my computer.  Both are feeding the HOLO AUDIO MAY DAC.  Problem solved.  Up until now, the CXNv2 coax output usually sounded and staged slightly better than the USB.

So now that I have been jacked with a bit, it's time for some real world analogue.  I warmed up the tape machine for the first time since I built the amplifier.  And something came in the mail today.  I got lucky enough after 11 years of searching and wishing/hoping to find the holy grail tape from my youth... Supertramp Crime of the Century.  I had the tape, the albums and the CD's and the streaming.  Virtually all the digital version of this are ruined in my opinion which is harsh and coming from deeply rooted analog memory of the album. But what came in the mail wasn't the cassette or 4 track reel to reel or another pressing, instead I now have a copy of the actual 1/4 inch master tape at 15IPS!!!!!!!!

This is a tape I've been dreaming about hearing ever since I got into reel to reel tape... and what a treat I get to hear it on Decware gear which I didn't even know would exist when I first fell in love with this album!  More special is to experience the natural harmonic compression of the 300B tube when cranked to the wood playing balls out rock and roll!  The purpose of tonights test for the SEWE300B amplifier.  It is hooked to the corner horns right now but the test will be repeated on several other speakers as well.

This is not an easy recording to get right and if it isn't right it's wrong, or off...  I've been trying to enjoy it since I first heard it sound right in my car stereo I created in 1979 which I tricked out to the best of my abilities at the time.  It was surreal in that car, and no stereo has ever come close to getting it that right.  Until tonight.  Holy Crap!  We went WAY passed getting it right to "here's what dynamics really sound like". I'm proud to say this tape has absolutely kicked the HOLO AUDIO MAY's ass so bad it's almost embarrassing.  No fault of the DAC though because I'll have to make a digital copy of this tape to see how it would actually compare...

That said I am tripping on the experience. 300B is kinder than other amplifiers when at elevated distortion levels that just begin to become audible.  And since I set it up as a 4 watt amplifier, at 4 watts there is a lot of headroom.  This tape would have never played on the Zen Triode 2.3 watt platform without clipping.  On Sarah, it just sailed through it like nothing.  I feel like the amp wants to party.  Like this might be the perfect companion to take to Woodstock 1969.

I am not only surprised but impressed with the dynamics.  I have never heard these dynamics come out of the amp since I built it.  But that's what I get for listening only to digital during it's development.

I just finished side one and the solidity and density and naturalness and the way it is all so damn tight that it sounds serious in a way that usually only happens live.



TIME PASSES

Side Two has me transfixed.  I measured the SPL at the listening chair at 94dB 11 feet away from the speakers that are only a single six inch driver per side.  I can't say I've heard these speakers get any louder than this, regardless of amp, think ZMA...  

The density is killing me.  Crime of the Century has taken on a whole new meaning for me.  It is the crime of the century to make the world listen to the records, CD's, cassette tapes, and bullshit streams of this album.  It's like if the real thing were the best beer you ever had, all the other copies were watered down and pissed in.  The master tape hype is real.  I WILL be demoing this a DECFEST.  It's just SICK.

Side two over... that was just insane!  I can't even believe what I just heard.  This amplifier had some secrets I didn't know about.  I feel like there is a parallel with my small block chevy.  I feel like the tape machine blew the cobs out of the amplifier and it just crushed it!

How the hell is it possible to get that loud with that dynamic and weight and sense of power with four watts?  Audio Gods were here. They're here right now, because we're going to play both reels a second time.  Has to happen.  It was too good.  

So before I disappear into the mist, the lesson here is that this amp sounded like crap all week because it was so good it let me hear a completely failed firmware update to my once favorite streamer.  I started to panic.  I started to have visions of revisiting the circuitry.  That's how F'd up this hobby is.  When I unwrapped the tapes and flipped the switch on the tape machine, the audio gods quietly showed up, all of them, and chilled out on the back wall waiting to see what I would do when I heard what was about to happen.

So with that, we're going for round two...

Good night!

Steve

I remember buying Supertramp Crime of the Century in London before it came out in the United States, I actually purchased it from Richard Branson at his little shop Virgin Records. I had gone over to buy rare blue eye soul R&B singles in the Barrows but came home with Lulu, the Man Who Sold The World, Leo Sayer The Show Must Go On, Super Tramp Dreamer and 10CC Rubber Bullets 45's none of which had US releases yet. Here you are almost 50 years later getting to relive it

Just saw the new Sarah Video
I Thought I read in your build thread you were including an internal Zrock set at parity as part of the Sarah's design? I even asked you if I could get one put into the Rachel? https://youtu.be/HUTVpSPlqSI

Lon for me it really doesn't communicate that. The ZRock isn't even seen in the video except by name, from this video I'm not sure if the video is demonstrating an external ZRock2 or an internal ZRock. If there is a ZRock circuit already built into the Sarah why would you need a second ZRock?

I suppose if an external ZRock2 was used that might've been demonstrated better by flipping the bypass switch in the middle of the playback.

Personally I hope Steve is not using a second ZRock in the signal path, that redundancy seems illogical in a State of the Art top of the line Amplifier.

I am looking forward to hearing both The Sarah and the Rachel Solo and with the ZRock at Decfest.

This morning I also read the thread about the debut of the ZRock in 2017 and your final decision to reorder after canceling. I was unsure about buying one before today and had decided to wait until I heard the Rachel at the Decfest before making a decision.

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I think if you read what Steve said earlier in the thread he backed away from calling the circuit a "zrock" in favor of "12au7 driver stage" exactly to (try to) avoid this kind of issue. For me personally, I have no want or need of a zrock, but many Decware family members love what they do in their current setups and I'm sure will continue to love them with Sarah.

Lon yes I surmised that might of been a Zrock with the tube boxes on top to the left of the Sarah while the volume knobs were adjusted. It could of just as easily been any number of black boxes. It certainly wasn't featured or even focused upon.

I am satisfied with the explanations put forward here but feel the video could have been clearer. Additionally I think a better choice of music could have been selected, the bass line reminded me of a ratchet gear.

I admit that could be due to my playback online with low quality Tin HiFi ear buds. I'm going to replay it through my 15 inch field coil speaker and listen again.

And I have to make a correction: the box with the tube boxes on top is actually a ZBIT.

Quote:


I think you will get a lot more of that kind of information reading Steve's posts on the message board rather than looking for it in the videos.