You're entitled to your opinion, Iveson. We are entitled to say your
opinion sounds like ****. Always. The key word in the analogy is
"always". A SET which always sounded the same would be a performer and
therefore wrongly conceived, executed or applied.

What SET does for the oldtimers, who design SET amps and build them and
listen to them and *compare their sound to what they hear in concert
halls* is simply to sound, on any particular piece of music, more like
the sound one heard in the concert hall than other tube topologies
(except PP Class A) or any solid state amp.

You see, the key argument the silicon slime make is that their
responsibility stops at the point wher they can prove that their amps
reproduce the master tape perfectly. But that is never the sound one
heard in the concert hall. The argument then shifts to the master tape
and what it includes or does not include. SET or PP class A amps really
have nothing to do with this; it is quite incidental, if fortuitous,
that from the same master tape they are better at reproducing the sound
*heard in the concert hall* than silicon.

A SET amp is not a performer, it is a reproducer.

By the way, quite contrary to your statement, real musicians are almost
without exception trying to reproduce a sound first heard in the
composer's head, or in a practice room several hundred years ago in the
presence of the composer. There is virtually no such thing in serious
music as a truly original performance, not even the premiere of a
brand-new composition; all you need to discover this is to sit in on
the rehearsals of a few new compositions and listen to the composer and
performers work on the rendition of the score, and then to follow the
premiere with auditions of other performers playing the same
composition in the same way as the performers who gave the premiere.
Originality in classical music proceeds by tiny accretions of
variation.

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Amps at http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/
"wonderfully well written and reasoned information
for the tube audio constructor"
John Broskie TubeCAD & GlassWare
"an unbelievably comprehensive web site
containing vital gems of wisdom"
Stuart Perry Hi-Fi News & Record Review

Ian Iveson wrote:
Just strayed to ukra, and tried this:

"...I believe you miss the point of the whole SET plot. The
"sound of real musicians playing" is never the result of
reproduction. Real musicians playing are not trying to reproduce a
previous performance by someone else. Neither is a typical
combination of a SET and its speakers. Such a system *is* a live
performer, and is optimised for that purpose."

Actually I haven't a clue...it's just a desperate guess and I've
never even heard a proper SET system, never mind designed one.

Is it true?

cheers, Ian



(To elucidate, maybe, I tried labouring this:

The "sound of real musicians playing" is never the result of
reproduction.

Therefore systems designed only for reproduction will never produce
the "sound of real musicians playing".

SET systems are not in general designed primarily for reproduction,
but rather for the "sound of real musicians playing".

Therefore it is possible that SET systems sound more like the "sound
of real musicians playing" than systems designed only for
reproduction.

Furthermore, some people who have listened say this is true.)