Fantastic discovery Steve! I'm sure the amp sounds as lovely as Sarah.

I can't imagine where to put the amp if I got one--I am so attached to the Monoblocks now, and in my other system I can only (due to spousal authorization) use the long narrow chassis amps and preamps because they have to reside behind a cadenza. Alas. But I know there's a particular "magic" in the 300B tube that you would discover how to implement best--this is going to be a wonderful addition to the product line. And I can't wait for you to hear a WE 300B and then get it "cryotoned."

A splendid success!
Congratulations, Steve.
Just in time for Easter.

Happy for you,
Brian

If Steve is happy with it I think it's great for all music! Just my suspicion. . . .

Also my guess is that it would need a subwoofer in the same way that a Rachel might. . . or might not. . . depending on personal taste, room and system.

Quote:


I would say the "traditional" 300B sound is big, lush and warm but slow and rolled off at the frequency extremes. And, again "traditionally" they excelled a e.g. acoustic music and vocals but didn't really rock.

To echo what Lon said, I think if Steve is happy with his 300B amp it isn't going to be a traditional 300B sound. It is going to be fast and transparent across the entire frequency range and (if you have the right speakers and the right room) it is going to give you all the bass you want, in addition to a dose of the 300B magic in the midrange.
 

Steve's been (presumably) putting her through her paces for the past couple days. I expect an armchair report is in our immediate future. Or perhaps, Steve doesn't sit to listen. Maybe he's the kind of guy who slam dances whilst ancient audio gods of renown chase him around the room.

I'm absolutely flattered that Steve is naming the 300B amp after me! And what woman doesn't love compliments. I enjoy reading them.  :)

Her loveliness aside, this amp naming is appropriate for the work that Sarah has done for us and for Steve--professional and congenial customer service, and hard-to-imagine from our viewpoint wonderful support to the company. The amp could just as easily have been named DeVon--for her beauty or her tremendous accomplishments. Either way this amp would have a lot to live up to--and I know it will.

I am nominating the Zkit1 to be named Lon.

I think we should name the treble control after Lon.  Lon control.  Don't laugh, I might just do it.  ; ).  Now, what do we have around here with a treble control?  Ironically the only thing was the TORII until MK5.  The only other things that actually have Lon controls are owned by... Lon.

Steve

UPDATE Tuesday

Trying to wrap my brain around this tube trying to figure out why it sounds so different.  I couldn't figure out if it's a speed thing or what... what else could it be?  As I mentioned in my last post this amp sounds like a Zen Triode with a CSP325 in front of it. Adding a CSP3 or CSP325 in front of any of our other amplifiers adds density, body, tone.  It makes the digital source sound more like real music.

This amplifier is doing it without the preamp. So it feesl unusual to hear this kind of body without the extra parts in the signal path... ie. preamp.

It definitely sounds like it is connecting all the dots with digital recordings making me wonder if the other Decware amps are just too fast. No that's silly, besides how can a tube be slow to a point where you could hear a difference...  (mind is cooking)

The stereotypical way to connect all the dots is with syrup. We don't need a 1950's thick ass slow mushy amp. There's a lot of them out there. And trust me, the way I built this it is not slow.

So anyway I have been pondering this for the past couple days and then tonight I jumped into the listening chair and caught something that I think is a clue.

I was listening to some delicate triangles being struck in the background of a Larry Carlton piece and marveling at the animation and delicacy of it. The trail of the stick was fully and gracefully defined. I could see it, feel it, and it was different. There was just more there. When you can see the trail of the stick you know it's good, because it's during that trail -- there is no sound.  It's the time the stick is in the air between the notes and what it does that makes music, not the strike. So we're easily able to excavate down to this level, yet things sound so smooth while it's doing it.

I say that because you associate smooth with "filter" or "slower".  

Anyway, these are some things I am wrestling with trying to prepare to describe the sound. So far the one word description is: DENSITY.

Tonight during the triangle track I realized what is happening between the two amps. SE84UFO25 and SEWE300B.  

I believe what is actually happening is that the SEWE300B is like HD or even 2K resolution at 60 fps and the SE84UFO25 is like 4K at 30 fps.

Treble and bass sound so close it's really too hard to call it yet. I think the SE84UFO25 may have tighter bass, but the SEWE300B has more bass density.

It's so good, I'm going to loan my personal SE84UFO25 to Don at Cryotone for awhile so he do some experimentation with it and use it to evaluate some tubes. : )



Also, for the record, no computer was used to model any of the circuits in this amplifier. I find it faster to just build it and measure it. I find it faster because the result is real world. All 6 of the circuits I tried would model perfectly on Spice programs and in fact all 6 measured perfectly when I build them too. 5 of them sounded like crap OK but not great and really that's after I edited this paragraph.

I feel really lucky that it only took 6 times. I haven't second guessed it yet, nor heard a single thing in the past two days that would compel me to tweak or change it. I really wasn't exaggerating when I said it went from a 5 to a 19. The only thing I know of that can measure 19 on a scale of 1 to 10 is Sarah so it's fitting that we'll name it after her plus she has been my customer service hero for 17 years and quite literally without her this amp would not have been possible. Without getting into details, she is the reason why we will have a 300B amplifier.

If someone already had a CSP3 and ran in it front of this 300b amp, what would the sonic signature be like? Would it muddy the waters since the meat's already on the bone?

The Sarah300B  :)

Jay, I think that it boils down to what Steve says in post #69 of this thread. There he seems to say that the 300B amp sounds more similar to a SE84UFO25  with the CSP3-25 feeding it than any of the EL34 amps, and there IS a difference between that signature and the EL34 signature, and those differences are what I personally prefer, and the key word is "Density":

UPDATE Tuesday

Trying to wrap my brain around this tube trying to figure out why it sounds so different.  I couldn't figure out if it's a speed thing or what... what else could it be?  As I mentioned in my last post this amp sounds like a Zen Triode with a CSP325 in front of it. Adding a CSP3 or CSP325 in front of any of our other amplifiers adds density, body, tone.  It makes the digital source sound more like real music.

This amplifier is doing it without the preamp. So it feesl unusual to hear this kind of body without the extra parts in the signal path... ie. preamp.

It definitely sounds like it is connecting all the dots with digital recordings making me wonder if the other Decware amps are just too fast. No that's silly, besides how can a tube be slow to a point where you could hear a difference...  (mind is cooking)

The stereotypical way to connect all the dots is with syrup. We don't need a 1950's thick ass slow mushy amp. There's a lot of them out there. And trust me, the way I built this it is not slow.

So anyway I have been pondering this for the past couple days and then tonight I jumped into the listening chair and caught something that I think is a clue.

I was listening to some delicate triangles being struck in the background of a Larry Carlton piece and marveling at the animation and delicacy of it. The trail of the stick was fully and gracefully defined. I could see it, feel it, and it was different. There was just more there. When you can see the trail of the stick you know it's good, because it's during that trail -- there is no sound.  It's the time the stick is in the air between the notes and what it does that makes music, not the strike. So we're easily able to excavate down to this level, yet things sound so smooth while it's doing it.

I say that because you associate smooth with "filter" or "slower".  

Anyway, these are some things I am wrestling with trying to prepare to describe the sound. So far the one word description is: DENSITY.

Tonight during the triangle track I realized what is happening between the two amps. SE84UFO25 and SEWE300B.  

I believe what is actually happening is that the SEWE300B is like HD or even 2K resolution at 60 fps and the SE84UFO25 is like 4K at 30 fps.

Treble and bass sound so close it's really too hard to call it yet. I think the SE84UFO25 may have tighter bass, but the SEWE300B has more bass density.

It's so good, I'm going to loan my personal SE84UFO25 to Don at Cryotone for awhile so he do some experimentation with it and use it to evaluate some tubes. : )


So from this it seems it's more akin character wise to the ultimate Zen sound with larger power (and without the preamp!) than the Rachel sound or the Torii sound with or without the preamps is how I read these most recent impressions.

The main prerequisite for me was that it have that same intoxicating transparency of our other amplifiers, which as you can see wasn't easy to find. Believe me the 300B sound is what this amp is about however it can't be wooly, dark, slow, or extra thick like some 300B amps and as well it can't be clinical, sterile or analytical. Believe me the tube can sound like any of these things. One of my iterations sounded like a pentode that just took a big snort of cocaine. It was so much the opposite of the classic 300B sound you would have never guessed it.

I am getting anxious to hear the real deal. The Russian 300B I expect to have less inner detail but at this point it's just a guess. I'll call WE before the weeks over and get a pair on the way.

Steve

Will the amp be compatible with 300B mesh tubes?

http://www.emissionlabs.com/datasheets/EML300B-mesh2.html

520B tubes?

http://www.emissionlabs.com/datasheets/EML520B-Datasheet.html

I've tried a few NOS 5u4g rectifiers and the EML 5u4g mesh is my favorite.

If Steve wants the real deal old school 300b....

https://tubedepot.com/products/nos-western-electric-300b-black-plate-1961-matche...
d-pair

https://tubedepot.com/products/nos-western-electric-300b-black-plate-1964-1966-m...
atched-pair

At $9995 a pair the new production Western Electric tubes are a bargain.  The vintage tubes have been hunted to extinction. Five years ago you could find a pair for around $3k. Now good luck finding a pair.

I'm anxious to hear Steve's updates review with a fresh pair of WE tubes!

I am using a Bottlehead Kaiju 300B amp which I built.
It's a point to point amp and sounds marvelous once I had changed the tubes to Linlai Cossor WE300B's.

I switched out the caps and added the DC filament supply upgrade which makes it dead silent in use.

In fact I sold my Pass Labs XA30.8 once i had completed it as it has a more holographic presentation than the XA30.8.

Link : https://bottlehead.com/product/kaiju-300b-amplifier-kit/

none.

A cream-colored, crinkle-coated top plate with black silk-screened volume indicators would be rad.

Unless I scrap this design for something different, the dimensions are the same as the SE34I.6

The five year warranty that comes with the WE 300B makes the initial cost easier to swallow.