What's the greatest bargain in SET these days?

Charles the only reason I brought up the Magenetic Line, as an example, was power. 8 watts with the Decapo is a big gamble regardless of how great those 8 watts are for the money. It seemed Rebbi had made up his mind to sell his amps and buy either a Dynamo or Decware. I think it great that he buy either amp outright BUT not before listening should he sell the Manley. This isn't a slam dunk decision as he seemed to suggest in his last post.

btw, I have throughly enjoyed all the input on this thread. It has been a most interesting read with lots of great info for all that might be interested in SET amplifiers.

My understanding from Tash Goka of Reference 3A is that the Antique Sound Labs SET (300b based) 8 watt integrated that they sell was made with the De Capo in mind. Spoke with Israel Blume and he thought the Dynamo and the De Capo would be stellar together. Steve Deckert @ Decware thought that as long as I didn't anticipate playing orchestral music at concert hall volumes I'd be really happy.
There's some good info there.

Rebbi, my sense is exactly what you got from Steve Deckert. If I were going to use an SET with the deCapos for Mahler, it would have to be something like the Franks. Otherwise, I think I'm going to be very happy with the dynamo driving the deCapos.

I tend to agree with Deckert and Brownsfan. But I will say this: on large orchestral pieces, in my 16x14 foot office where the Dynamo's currently reside, hooked up to 95db 8ohm speakers I would not want to push the volume control much beyond 10 o'clock, even though they can go much, much louder without strain, but I'd like to save my hearing. Today I was playing large scale movie music, Gladiator, Ben Hur, El Cid and others, pretty wow experience.

Like Tubegroover I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but I thought I would point out what appear to be highly credible measurements of the Reference 3A MM de Capo BE, performed by the National Research Council of Canada. They indicate a measured sensitivity of 86.7 db/2.83 volts/1 meter. As can be seen in the first graph, the sensitivity is in the vicinity of 92 db at a few specific frequencies, but is considerably lower at a great majority of frequencies.

Also, the impedance curve shown near the bottom of that page indicates that their impedance is about 6 ohms throughout much of the mid-bass region, where lots of energy is often required. 2.83 volts into 6 ohms is 1.33 watts, which is 1.2 db greater than 1 watt. So on a per watt basis, the 86.7 db figure is arguably optimistic by 1.2 db, meaning that 85.5 db/1 watt/1 meter is probably all that can be counted on with a lot of music.

Something to consider, despite the comments by the esteemed designers mentioned above. Regards,

-- Al