Sonus Faber Guarneri Homage and Single Ended Triod

Hi Onemug, I see what you are saying about the level required for the 10th of
a watt. However, I am not so sure that on bass transients etc. that the speaker
doesn't draw more juice ( Possibly a lot more). Currently, I use a 250 watt/ch amp and amazingly
in my small room that unit gets warm and seems to be working a little even at
lower levels.
BTW, I think the Art Audio amps are very fine. Definitely on my short list to try, along with the other amps mentioned.
There used to be an old a'phile saying... with 15watts you can fill a church.( Problem was with what?) ..:0)

Daveyf,
Yes, no doubt those bass transients are going to want some power. I read once that transients can take up to 200 times the rms power to reproduce them. 200 times a 1/10 of a watt = 20 watts, beyond the scope of most 300b SET's. One rms "bell" louder and you'll need 200 watts, so you can run out of power real quick if you like to crank it. Transients are of such short duration that an amp with a strong power supply might pull it off to some degree.

When ss clips it's usually not pretty, pp tube is better but triodes clip pretty easy on the ears.

I'm experiencing that with my Cary V12i's and Maggie combo. This Cary is 100 wpc ultralinear and 50 triode. Triode sounds more powerful. Go figure. BTW, the Cary has el34's which are not triodes. There is a UL/Triode switch that changes the operation.

I wander if anyone else has any experience driving relatively inefficient speakers with low powered 300B amps? Thoughts?

I used Cary 300B Signature to drive B&W N805 without problem, but it took a year to break-in the N805. I also tried Forte 4A(50W class A) to drive N805 and found it was only a few more powerful than Cary 300B Signature. Then I bought B&W S805 and found they are much easier to drive than N805 thanks to their bigger magnet in the woofers. At that time, it took only 8 hours to break in the S805. I also tried Welbourne DRD 300B & J.C. Verdier 300B to drive S805 without any problems. I found J.C. Verdier 300B is the most powerful one of these 3 300B amps. So I sold the Cary's & Welbourne's.

Poorguy, do you have any idea how efficient the B&W S805 is?
The Sonus Faber GH's are pretty inefficient, on the order of 84- 86db
I believe.
I would suspect that any speaker below 89db efficiency may not be a
very good match for low powered single ended tubes.
These amps may drive a lower efficiency speaker but I would suspect
would run out of steam very quickly on bass transients etc.
I am curious if anyone has any long term experience with this
apparent mis-match( low powered single ended amps matched up with lower efficiency speakers)( Onemug do you still use 300b's to drive your GH's?) I still want to try this combo myself, so far no opportunity.:0(