Once you go 300b it’s hard to go back?

Hi jond,
Yep, overall implementation and appropriate attention paid to the power supply and output transformers are simply unavoidable  vital decision points. 300b amplifiers can range from lush,slow and very colored to outstanding clarity, transparency and naturalness. Depends on the builder and quality of execution.
Charles

While I don't have experience with that model, I haven't heard a Line Magnetic amp that I didn't adore. I've even run them on dynaudios with great results - makes no sense on paper but the music is beautiful

Hi @jond,

Until I lived with Lynn Olson’s personal Karna amplifiers (http://www.nutshellhifi.com/triode2.html) while he was getting settled into his new house here in Colorado in 2005, much of this lush vs. quick 300B stereotype was theory. Yes, I’d heard 300B amps that were more or less incisive, but they still fell within a range that I’d refer to as a "normal" characterization of a 300B.

The material on Lynn's page is a bit dated, as the Ariel speakers are about to receive an upgrade to a horn system he's been designing over the past few years, but the basic amplifier design principles hold true to this day.

Of course, Lynn’s amplifiers are push-pull 300Bs (so this isn’t an apples to apples comparison with anything else), but he used all of the power supply tricks I’m using, and of equal importance is that his driver tube is a 45 (Sakuma/direct heating again - output tube driving output tube).

The Karnas' sound more like powerful single ended amps than push-pull, which plays into my theory that the better various architectures are designed and implemented, the more convergence there is between them.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier Design

@charles1dad  understood and agreed on power supplies I am sure i
will listen to a 300B amp again someday!

@thom_mackris interesting looking amps thanks for the link. On the subject of the amps being push pull I am a fan i’ve heard and loved 45 and 2a3 pp amps.

Lynn is a brilliant theoretician and I feel fortunate to live in the same town - bouncing ideas back and forth with him. Having his Karnas in my house for those three months was revelatory.

Check out his essay "Illusion Engines". Some of it (written in the mid-90’s) is a bit dated, but the concepts are still viable (to me): http://www.nutshellhifi.com/library/illusion-engines.html.  He's primarily a "speaker guy" (having designed first for Audionics in the '70's), but he digs into all areas of audio with passion.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier Design