User211 has a point. Another buddy here has highly modified Klisph K-horns running Dan Allen and Quicksilver SET's with Allen and Quicksilver preamps. The SET's are based on 2A3 and 300B tubes and are jaw droppingly good. Athough I hate to say CJ could in any sense be considered "mechanical", that is what I was thinking when those SET's were playing. the SET's sure can make you realize that there is more than one way to skin a cat.
The fact that he also has (three) tri-amped Quicksilver push pulls (55 wpc) available to hook up and compare and three out of four of us picked the 9 watt SET as superior kind of sums it up.
I used to know a bloke that made Voyd turntables - not that well but we both worked for the same Aerospace company. Interesting design TT - 3 motors and a bullet proof Lexan platter! The theory behind this was to use a lightweight high energy dissipating platter but keep the speed constant with bags of torque. Anyway - I once went round to his cellar to have a listen to some Snell Type Js (highly efficient paper cones), a Voyd with a Audionote IO cartridge, Helius Orion tonearm and some 2A3 based Audio Innovations monoblocks - "The First" I believe they were called.
Absolutely staggered by it - the resolution of the system was absolutely unbelievable! The impact of the snare drum on one particular recording just sounding like a guy was sitting there in front of you banging it. Extremely 3D too and very holographic. It came at a cost of revealing loads of vinyl noise, and I mean copious amounts - but boy was that an education!
To this day, I have never heard a more immediate in-your-face sounding system. It's hard to explain, but it wasn't an easy listen - the total opposite of dinner party background music - that's for sure. But that isn't to say it wasn't excellent.
For all the research that has been done on the best material to use for dynamic driver cones, NEVER underestimate the ability of simple paper!
Anway, simple tube circuits can sound absolutely astonishing - but many have no power to drive stats with. That's why I said PSE i.e. parallel single ended. You can coax more Watts that way - but probably at a
slight disadvantage to a true SET. They just do things that nothing else can.
The best sounding power tube types in the world are all triodes, IMHO.
It has just occured to me that was 20 years ago. That cartridge is still current but extremely expensive. And nothing will have changed - i.e. that system will
still sound completely beyond belief!
Here's some info on The First:
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:68hSbYZnpsAJ:members.1012surfnet.at/tube.audio/Audio%2520Innovations.htm+audio+innovations+the+first&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1
Read the design criterion!
It was a push-pull, directly heated triode design. I think SET came into vogue once people realised what designs like this could do.