But I preferred the pairing with the more sensitive Heco Direkts as the sound was more dynamic and unrestricted. Well, what do you know…the ATCs were driven to quite loud level with volume knob at the 11 o’clock position without any sign of clipping. I decided to connect the Audionote Meishu Line Silver to the resident pair of ATC SCM50 floorstanders which are drastically inefficient at 85dB. So an eight-watt 300B SET integrated amp can rock. But the rock music was rendered with a good measure of PRAT and I was soon nodding to the rhythm. Compared with the 300-watter Bryston 4B SST that I normally use, there was just a slight lack of thump on the snares and less impact on the bass drum. I played CD rips of Bad Company’s Can’t Get Enough and Rock Steady and also Steely Dan’s Babylon Sisters and Hey Nineteen (from Gaucho HDTracks hi-res file) and with the volume knob at 11 o’clock, I rocked the house and kept looking out for any annoyed neighbour. Even my view of SET amps rolling off the treble and bass was proven wrong. Now, I realise I was wrong because I had listened to lower-quality components. It completed the system and was a perfect fit.Īll my previous impressions of SET amp/high-efficiency speakers were overturned. In my system comprising a laptop, Oehlbach USB cable, Chord Hugo DAC/headphone amp, WyWires interconnects, Goertz MI2 ribbon speaker cables (I had earlier used the Kimber 12TC the Goertz sounded better) and the Heco Direkt speakers, the Audionote Meishu Line Silver was the final piece in the jigsaw puzzle. Now this Audionote Meishu Line Silver is different beast altogether. Also I had heard a lesser-quality SET amp driving a pair of poorly-designed horn speakers and the uneven and ‘honky’ sound put me off the SET/high efficiency speaker route. I had always felt that SET amplifiers delivered a sweet and succulent midrange with vocals to die for, but at the expense of a rolled-off bass and treble. There are also many audiophiles who swear by the 300B tube (Western Electric NOS) as the only way to sonic heaven. There are many audiophiles who swear by the low-power SET amp with high-efficiency speakers way to sonic heaven. And as it turned out, it was not right, but perfect. It so happened that I had a pair of Heco Direkt speakers to review and since they had efficiency of 95dB, I thought a low-powered SET tube amp would be the right match for them. I have heard various 300B based amplifiers in shows and dealers’ listening rooms, but it was the first time that a 300B amplifier had spent several days in my home rig. Look at the size of the Audionote Meishu Line Silver integrated amp compared with the CD. “The 300B is of course the classic power triode and if used correctly is both great sounding and very reliable, we are fortunate in that the Chinese make such good versions of them, we use the Psvane standard 300B in all the Meishus for the cost it is by far the best sounding and most reliable of the 300Bs in our experience,” It uses the following valves: 2x 300B, 2x 5687, 1x 6SN7, 2x 6X5 and 1x 5U4GĪudionote’s head honcho Peter Qvortrup told : “The line of Meishu integrated 300B amplifiers are essentially our best selling products, at least until the Cobra hits the streets, which given the current size of the order book may take a while longer! The Meishu does bridge, if that is what you can call it, between the OTO/M2 and the Level 3 separates, but it really was always meant to be a relatively cost efficient way to enter the realms of truly high quality no-feedback triode amplification, and to provide an introduction in that regard. The Silver version, which is the second of three models, adds Audio Note’s tantalum resistors, copper foil signal capacitors, electrolytic capacitors in many places and HiB copper wired double C-core output transformers. The Audionote Meishu has eight watt (it is eight according to the owner’s manual the website says it is nine watt) single-ended Class A no feedback triode mono amplifiers and valve rectified choke power supply. The Audionote weighs 27.5kg (shipping weight 40kg) and measures a huge 22cm (h) X 46cm (w) X 53cm (d). Loading and unloading the boxed (a huge box, btw) Audionote Meishu Line Silver integrated amplifier onto my car was a back-straining job and it took two people to get it done. When you need two people to carry an eight-watt integrated amplifier, you will have the feeling that it will be something special.
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