69.166.125.251
Posted by AlwaysJoking (A)
on March 05, 2005 at 12:24:14
This is my first post on Audio Asylum. I just wanted to share with all of you my thoughts on an absolutely wonderful, and surprisingly powerful SET amplifier; the DeHavilland Aries 845-G. I see from the posts in this forum that some of you already have experience with these amplifiers. I'd like to contribute my experience as well, mainly for the benefit of those of you that may be curious but have not yet had that opportunity.
Let me start with the good folks at deHavilland; Kara and George. They are first class people who have a serious passion for music, and the technical knowledge and skills to deliver it in all its glory to your ears. Besides crafting solid electronics, George and Kara are patient and insightful educators and offer seasoned, sensible advice.
Now the amplifiers. After a lengthy audition, my wife and I replaced the amplifiers in our system (the well-regarded Manley NeoClassic 250/100s) with deHavilland Aries 845-Gs. In our system (see below), and to our ears, the Aries 845-Gs make music that is more clear, more direct, more natural, more engaging, and more emotional than our Manleys. The Manleys MAY have had slightly more resolving power, but if so this came at the expense of emotion and engagement. It seems that some electronics tend to be very good at dissecting things, but never quite put the music back together. The Manleys certainly were not overly clinical or dry: they definitely served things up real nice, but the Aries 845-Gs do it more naturally, with more ease and grace, and without the slight tension that the Manelys had (perhaps an inherent consequence of their push-pull design).
The very surprising thing to us was that the Aries 845-Gs have plenty of muscle to effectively drive our not-so-efficient speakers. They MORE than kept up with the higher (stated) power Manleys. The 845-Gs not only faithfully and beautifully render delicately nuanced vocals and richly textured string arrangements, they can also put the groove and swing into jazz and R&B, and the grit and drive into Rock&Roll and alt-country.
After listening to a lot of audio gear over the years, my wife and I thought that the type of emotion that the Aries 845-Gs deliver had to be accompanied by some measure of the romantic, slow, thick, honey pot effect that often is associated with big powerful output tubes operating SET. That's not so. The Aries 845-Gs deliver clean, natural, absolutely engaging, wonderful MUSIC. When I say “clean,” I don’t mean hard, edgy or analytical; my wife is very sensitive to that type of presentation. I can tell you that after more than one audition, salesmen have asked “How was that?” and rather than receiving the expected praise, they’ve watched my wife get up, say “I have a headache” and walk out. She can't stand analytical edginess, and she loves the Aries 845-Gs. I hate gooey presentation with a passion, and I love the 845-Gs. We both love music. The Aries 845-Gs make wonderful music. No wonder we are so happy with them! :)
When my wife and I initally asked to audition the Aries 845-Gs, we did so with open minds and honestly did not think they would be very much better our well-loved Manley NeoClassics. The Manleys are awfully good (they win those awards for a reason, and the folks at Manley Laboratories also are very passionate and knowledgeable about music and its reproduction). But, as my wife and I listened to the Aries 845-Gs we discovered that they have a life that our Manleys could not match (not with tube, cable or preamplifier swapping – we tried). We reserved judgment for a couple months (like I said, George and Kara are very patient). I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t being seduced by something false; some novelty that would wear off. In the final analysis, the Aries 845-Gs just have a truer sound. Maybe it is just stubborn, hypercritical folks like me that have a hard time believing their ears at first. My wife just smiles and tells me “I told you so” – she knew immediately…
Our system: deHavilland Aries 845-G amplifiers (the new heart and soul), VonSchwiekert VR 3.5 speakers, Sonic Euphoria PLC preamp, Musical Fidelity A5 CD player, and Don Scott modified NEC T-6 tuner. We have found that Guerilla Audio speaker cables, interconnects, and power cords (also made by someone passionate about music and knowledgeable about its transmission, Jason Nelson) work wonderfully in our system
Original article and thread can be found at http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/set/messages/37452.html