This SET integrated amplifier fills the gap between cheap Chinese-made units of poor build quality, and higher priced units that may be out of reach for the average listener... With a power rating of 6.5 WPC, it also has the ability to drive a wide range of speakers... Still, a judicious choice of high efficiency speakers is a good idea here... 89DB or above is the ticket...

So far, some preliminary tube rolling produced the best results with RCA 5693 'Red' driver tubes, and Shuguang EL 34B output tubes... I can see no reason to overspend on the output tubes... But the extra money for the RCA driver tubes was well worth it, in my opinion...

Some caveats: This amp was designed primarily as a speaker amp, but it does have a headphone output... Low impedance cans produce a noticeable hum, with higher impedance units sounding better in this respect...

Build quality is good, much better than I expected for the money spent... It also has two program inputs, a definite plus...

The sound is lush but well-defined... Overall musicality is very good... One nice thing is that these amps ship out of Canada, and the customer service is actually quite good. Try to get any service out of China, and you can see the advantage in this...

These amps sound absolutely charming with full-range single driver speakers with rear-horn loading such as the FrugalHorns... I have mine hooked up to a pair of Tang Band D3-1 back-loaded horn speakers, and the sound is fabulous...

In summary, if you want to get into tube sound for a reasonable price, and not get ripped off with a cheaply made unit, go for one of these... You simply can't go wrong here... (m.)