I am considering the Sarah, to drive my Altec A7's. I read that the Sarah puts out anywhere from 4 watts to 7 watts depending upon which voltage regulator valve (OA2-OC2 respectively) one chooses. I am wondering if anyone here is running Altec A7 VOT speakers with their Sarah, and if they could recommend which valve voltage regulation (OA2 or OB2 or OC2) would suit the speakers best (I prefer more lushness in my sound, so lower power preferred if possible).

The horn-loading adds some sensitivity to the Altec 416-8B low Frequency Loudspeakers (itself rated at 98db/watt) to perhaps 101 or 102db/watt, but with my cabinet reinforcements and wool felt lining I am not sure if some lost, also same because of the passive crossovers.

The treble is handled by a Great Plains Audio remake of an earlier Alnico compression driver and is around 105db/watt so not as much a problem.

Anyone out there with the experience?

Although I have no experience with those speakers I agree with James' suggestions entirely. I am running three 75C1 (an 0C2 equivalent) in my SEWE300B currently, and I'm loving the sound. I recommend trying the 75C1 type--it has a touch of dark richness to it and a unique texture compared to the other 0C2 types I have tried.

You can purchase the Sarah with no tubes, or with Steve's favorite tube complement and budget 300B tubes, or with Steve's favorite tube complement and Western Electric 300Bs.

"Steve's favorite tube complement" includes three 75C1 Voltage Regulators (0C2 equivalents), and a 5U4G Rectifier. Any tubes you are curious to use other than these are an additional expense.

I’m in agreement with the above, but I might add, that Decware amps tend to be pretty transparent and therefore revealing of each tube in pretty big ways. So getting nice tubes to begin with is a nice idea, but like Lon and James said, you really won’t know about the different VR‘s until you try them. And the same with the other tubes, most good tubes will sound really good, but revealing amps have a signature from the design and parts used as well, not to mention some great tubes sounding good in some rooms and not others. So finally for the deep beauty, the most optimal tubes will come down to system and room and tastes. Makes it is easy to end up with a lot of tubes as tools to finesse subtle or fairly substantial changes, and it is easier to make choices for where we want to go with the point of reference from the original tubes.

Here, I like to hang with favorite tube combinations arrived at from a lot of playing around over time, with minor tube tuning for refinement. Then I might change up the tubes in a more substantial way, a stronger variation on sound signatures that I love… like start with different power tubes that I also love but that have a different feel, and then tune to a more ultimate sound within that baseline. It always gives me a new window into the music, while learning a lot from the experimentation.