What've you compared your Stereomour to?

[Paul Folbrecht]

I've read what's out there on this amp, but there's not much (or nothing) comparing it to highly-regarded 45 & 2A3 SETs such as Fi or Yamamoto.  Now, considering the price of the kit if was in the same league as either that would be mightily impressive.  But I built a S.E.X. a number of years back and was quite taken aback at the sound quality, so I would not be too surprised.

I am already planning on building a pair of 45-based Stereomours for my front-horn system because I feel like building something and I know the sound will be at least "very good".  But I would be curious in hearing from those that have compared them to the "big boys".

[Paul Birkeland]

Somewhere I think there was a video of the Steremour and a Wavac 811 playing side by side, though I can't seem to locate it at the moment.

[Paul Folbrecht]

I had a Wavac 811.  Nice amp for a high-power SET - but a bit noisy and for sure colored.  If you want SET sound and need that much power, good choice, but all the high-powered SETs have pretty serious bandwidth restrictions and you can really hear that (lack of transient speed especially).

Any decent 2A3 or esp. 45 will smoke that amp.

[Doc B.]

It's likely that you can't blame the 811 tube for that. It's more likely that the driver stage is the bottleneck. We've been kicking around 845 amp ideas for years. The challenge always revolves around the driver for the 845, not the 845 itself.

Noisy, well that's more of a design decision.

[Paul Folbrecht]

Doc, you know somewhere between 100 and 1 jillyon times more than I about tube amp design, but isn't the real problem here getting really *good* bandwidth out of the size of the OPT you need for a 25W amp?  (I define good bandwidth as close to flat out to at least 50K - it seems less than that and the result is unnatural sluggishness.)

Of course, if one goes parafeed, I guess that problem is largely licked.

[Paul Birkeland]

For ~$1000/pair, you can get single ended output transformers for this application with good bandwidth. 

[crooner12]

I just returned from 3 days at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest and listened to probably 40-50 tube-based hi-fi systems and there were only one or two that I thought sounded "better" than my Stereomour + NHT Absolute Zero setup. It's hard to compare multi-driver, 800 lb speakers to my tiny NHT's and this amp, but dynamics aside, I was primarily listening for three things:

1. tonal balance
2. sound stage / imaging
3. resolution

Call me ignorant, but those are the aspects of music I've found over the years to make the most difference between a "good" system and a "great" system. Also "blackness" between the notes is key as well. What I'm looking for is realness, or if I'm convinced that the artist is faithfully in the room with me when I close my eyes. As a former amateur jazz musician that performed on stage, I know exactly what I'm listening for too.

So much comes down to the quality of the source material and recording that it often takes speakers + components out of the picture. That's why I often laugh when people spend big bucks on interconnects, power cords, and those weird triangle shaped things they put on speakers. I could not tell the difference between basic 12 ga speaker cable and $30k+ Transparent Opus in a double blind test on Wilson Alexia's a few months back. Maybe it's just my ears...

My main takeaway from the show is that I was left largely unimpressed but more enlightened than prior to the show. I had spent several hours the previous night listening to my system so that I could have a point of reference. After hearing systems costing more than a Ferrari 458 Italia (e.g. Wilson Alexandria XLF), I can say that, dynamics and aesthetics aside, most of what I heard was diminishing returns.

I stand by my original review of the Stereomour and NHT SZ in that there's little else that can compare at any price point, provided bass and overall "loudness" are not priority #1. What I heard at RMAF wasn't better, but different.

I took a bunch of videos and did a few interviews from the RMAF. They're up on my YouTube channel (crooner12) for those that are interested: http://www.youtube.com/user/crooner12/videos

I'm going to do a longer "show report" on my blog (http://krakleandpop.tumblr.com/) this weekend. I've got dozens of pics to upload and sort through...

[Chris]

"After hearing systems costing more than a Ferrari 458 Italia (e.g. Wilson Alexandria XLF)"   I know, It just BLOWS me away how speakers can cost more than an INCREDIBLE hand made technological marvel like the 458...It just does....