What's the greatest bargain in SET these days?

Hi Rebbi,
As I've said before,you're doing your homework. I honesty like all 3 of your final choices for various reasons.
1) Art Audio is a proven product with professional reviewer raves and also very strong owner feedback comments. Buying used with unknown(at this time anyway) support/repair network. However tube amps(especially point to point wired) aren't hard to repair for a good local tech.

2)AN Kit 300b, solid track record for quality and well respected product. Has very good owner satisfaction feedback.I'm glad upgrade capacitors were encouraged(smart move). As a kit the final result will be somewhat builder (skill)dependent. They do other optional high quality parts.

3)Commonsense 300b, Relatively unknown(unproven?) must trust the word of the builder mostly. However this could be a"really" good SET amplifier. It looks fine on paper and the story is good(who has heard one?).For 1500.00 it could in fact be something special. This amp represents the great unknown(unlike AN Kit and Art Audio).

all things considered the AN Kit is probably the safest choice with excellent upgrade options.AN certainly has vast experience and knowledge regarding the 300b tube.
Charles,

The low end roll off comment is interesting. If you can live with some low end roll off, those precious few watts can go further. Could be a good thing for dynamics otherwise. An amp spec worth considering with more borderline efficient speaks like the decapo. Remember that loudness and dynamics are two different things. It's the dynamics mostly that have been lacking In demos I have heard using underpowered sets with speakers of considerably higher efficiency even at moderate volume in not large rooms.

Mapman,
Your experiences with SET amps(not sure which ones you've heard,some are better than others of course) seem to certainly differ from mine,Brownsfan,Mikirob,Markus and others. In your case it appears you are better off with high power SS or class D amplifiers. That's the good aspect of audio, we all find what individually suits us best. Dynamic contrast and their gradiations are not an issue in my system. I personally experience more "startle" episodes listening with my SET amps than all the previous amps I've owned. As they say, YMMV.

Charles,

It's probably just amp/speaker synergy. Case by case. Each case may be a bit different . The best set demos I have heard have been excellent but with very large very efficient speakers designed for the task. Results of the best ss based combos are in the same league. No two exactly the same though. Source material makes a huge difference as well of course.

Ralph/Atmasphere has made the point in a number of past threads that a major reason SETs are commonly perceived as having especially good dynamics relates to how their distortion varies as a function of signal level.

With most push-pull amps, once output level falls below some number of watts (often measured in single digits, I believe), distortion will rise as the level decreases further.

With SETs, on the other hand, distortion will continue to progressively decrease as output level decreases, until it becomes vanishingly small at very low output levels. While distortion will progressively increase as the output level approaches the amplifier's maximum power capability. Since as Ralph has said our hearing mechanisms utilize certain distortion components as loudness cues, that kind of variation of distortion as a function of signal level will maximize the perceived contrast between high volume notes and low volume notes. Also, the vanishingly small distortion at low signal levels will enhance resolution of low level detail.

Makes sense to me. Best regards,
-- Al