Amp swap party

[Edward]

So Adam and I are for a few days doing a swap of amps. I'm borrowing his AD Audio 300b and he borrowing my Radford STA25 (plus a Class D Amp from Duncan).

The 300b is a lovely amp. Very delicate midband making for high realism and engaging sound as well as painting a wonderful picture across the whole range. The sound just simply hangs together in a very coherent manner with lots of "air" around the instruments. Different not better or worse than the Radford which has always performed wonderfully. But I will let Adam give his thoughts on what he feels about the Radford driving his Tannoys.

Meantime here couple of pics of the 300b driving the Kudos. The dac/preamp here is the Perreaux. Source is Flac.

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[Jazid]

So Adam and I are for a few days doing a swap of amps. I'm borrowing his AD Audio 300b and he borrowing my Radford STA25 (plus a Class D Amp from Duncan).

The 300b is a lovely amp. Very delicate midband making for high realism and engaging sound as well as painting a wonderful picture across the whole range. The sound just simply hangs together in a very coherent manner with lots of "air" around the instruments. Different not better or worse than the Radford which has always performed wonderfully. But I will let Adam give his thoughts on what he feels about the Radford driving his Tannoys.

Meantime here couple of pics of the 300b driving the Kudos. The dac/preamp here is the Perreaux. Source is Flac.

Sent via Tapatalk

Nice looking amp, is it push pull or PSE? And what is the rectifier? Looks a bit el37 ish? Come to think of it, what are the driver tubes as well? I am a bit sold on the 300b sound, always interested to know about other amps

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[Ali Tait]

It’s a GZ37 looks like.

[Edward]

Well I'm not so up on the technical aspects of this amp, but I do know the sound is a very delicate sweet sound that floats wonderfully in the air grabbing my attention and giving a lovely musical and emotional experience. Soundstage, depth, range, detail are all, as expected, impeccable.

Adam is more aware of the technical details so I will let him speak on that. What he did tell me was that it is a custom build from AD Audio (David Coe) is push-pull and the output valves are from TJ Full Music. (there does not seem to to be a direct website for TJ).

[Jazid]

It’s a GZ37 looks like.

Ah thanks, my bad - a late night post I meant GZ37...
Edward - Funnily enough I am listening to another of David's PP 300b amps with TJ valves in it right now. Drivers are 6AU6 and 5687 tubes. If yours sounds even similar to mine then it is indeed a treat for the ears! Nice stuff.

[Haselsh1]

Back around 95-97 I owned a WAD 300B push/pull amplifier that was built by WAD themselves. It was one of the finest sounding amps I have ever heard even to date but had a few problems however I do remember the intense purity of the midband and the sense of air and space. Sadly I used it with loudspeakers that were just unsuitable for such an amp and moved on to an Audion SEL 300B with Audio Note AZ-2's. The WAD 300B was my first ever valve amplifier and I have very fond memories of the sound.

[Haselsh1]

If this is the same amplifier type then the GZ37 is only used for a soft start as the amplifier is not valve rectified.

[WESTLOWER]

So thanks to Edward for agreeing to a swap around.
The 300b is indeed the sweetest sounding amp I've actually heard, period! And being talented and very well respected amp engineer David Coe's Personal build, he let me take custody on the premise it comes back at some point !, it's possibly as far as one can take Such an amp. It's a handsome beast, the Amp not Mr Coe... Tech spec, I'll contact David and update. Anyway it has no global negative feedback and this I'm informed Along with a higher impedance than the Radford STA25 produces lack of bass control in Tannoy Monitor Golds, which I now have. And indeed this transpired to be true.
One remedy maybe to mod the 300b with switchable global negative feedback..

On to the Radford STA25, well as documented elsewhere on the net and AoS it is s great match for these vintage Tannoys, either HPD drivers or Monitor Golds.
The bass control is very good, defined with loads of texture and plenty of grunt. It's been said that MGs don't do bass... they do with the Radford! The mids are nice, lush but clean and detailed, maybe not as full and sweet as the 300b but certainly a beautiful sound on male and female vocals..listening to Sinatra on MFSL vinyl and its lush. Tops are deatailed and they push through, jazz cymbals are clear and not grating. These are early impressions but the Radford & Tannoys match is a winner. Thanks to Edward, Tom & Peter for the help in getting to this point. I drive people bloody mad to pick brains!
I have to say if there was a way of getting that 300b valve / amp implementation to control the bass on the Tannoys we'd have the perfect amp!

Maybe modding the 300b with the feedback may help. That's the next step before a total change in direction.

Sinatra sure is filling this room with niceness with the Radford STA25 and 12" MGs tonight

[bumpy]

Some nice bits of kit there Adam. As a great fan, it was nice to see some SW1X kit in good company.

[WESTLOWER]

Some nice bits of kit there Adam. As a great fan, it was nice to see some SW1X kit in good company.

Cheers Chris, yes the SW1X Dac 1 Signature is a bedrock in the system. Slawa has produced some stunningly good equipment. It simply plays music superbly.