Mastersound 300B and bass

The Italians do seem to make great valve amps and valve integrated's in particularly. If you are questioning base, then I would consider an 845 based SET. The 3 main Italian makers, New Audio frontiers, Mastersound and Viva, all make 845 SET's. I have used the 22watt 845 Viva Solista for 4 years and it ain't going anywhere. I am sure others will disagree, but if you want power, grip on the speakers, neutrality, good base and above all transparency, go for an 845. I have yet to hear a reasonably priced amp I prefer to the Solista, anywhere A 300B is still a great amp of course, well executed, as the Frankenstein is, but inevitably, it will have a lower output, so limit speaker choice. My Solista drives my 89db Acoustic Zen Adagios, better, louder, than the 180watt ss Karan K180 I tried.

Using my mastersound se 300b on 94db 4 ohm loudspeakers with 15in woofers bass is deep detailed free from bloat. Mastersound uses custom wound transformers so wider responce over amps using off the shelf transformers. Since I design loudspeakers I tried this and many other 300b plus many other SET amps and the 300b being weak in bass compared to other SET tube types is pure BS. Sure many SETs transformers do not alow full responce but mastersounds sure do. The se300b worked good on loudspeakers with as low as 89db 1 watt 8 ohms.

I'd echo what JohnK mentions about transformers: The Quicksilver amps I had were built with huge, hand-wound custom transformers, and, as I said, they did pretty damn good in the bass department compared to other 300B SET amps I've heard. The few SET amps I've heard with smaller trannies really gave it up on the extremes.

I have a MasterSound 300B SE amp and I am using it to drive a pair of Kharma 3.1 speakers, the sound is outstanding. This is the higher power version (approx 17 wpc) which uses the either the 32B or 300BXLS output tubes. I am currently using Emission Labs 300BXLS tubes and I have found the sound of this amp to be much more extended at the frequency extremes than a typical 300B amp. I am sure this is due in part to the higher power tubes but also as “Johnk” stated to the massive custom transformers MasterSound uses. If you are looking for a beautifully built 300B based amp with really good bass with the 300B magic you should consider the MasterSound 300B SE, the other plus is that this amp is an integrated amp but also has a “direct” input which bypasses the preamp stage, so you can use your own preamp should you desire. If you need any more information about this amp please let me know.

Thanks for all the great input. With what all of you have said I'm set on getting a Mastersound 300B. Guess I could of course try to find a different 300B amp but as all the reviews of the Mastersound amps I've read are pretty good I don't see a reason to change my mind.

Thanks again