There is much buzz over the circuit topology thing. Much of it is real. Where I find fault is when folks think your an idiot, or deaf, for not choosing the "better" one. I want SET tubes AND ss. I think these devices are great tools for different job (with a good bit of overlap). It can be so confusing when you see someone post about how awful sand amps are, then a week later they write a paragraph on how damaging subjective terms and hyped stereotypes are. The Pi forum has a lot of varied opinions, but you don't find a lot or doubletalk here. (you don't have to look far to find it though) We like what we like and I think you should start with the amp you have. You can't lose with killer headroom and a solid bottom octave. If you find the more intimate SET thing still beckons, there are great inexpensive kits abound. Keep both amps hooked up and put you speakers connection high on the cabinet so you can just reach over and change to the other speaker cable. I plan to build some bottlehead stuff this spring. I like '64 Chevy Impala and '97 Jetta GLX, I don't compare them, and I don't expect they drive the same. I like the difference.

I was worried about the big ss amp when I was building the Pi's. I thought the vol knob would be too touchy to adjust, and that it would blow me to the other end of the room. It's fine, so I still have yet to see a decent set of compatible equipment that couldn't be set up to sound great.

Thomas

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I was surprised to find how good tube amps can sound. I expected bass and treble to be attenuated, and for what bass was there to sound bloated and underdamped. I expected the "midrange sweetness" that people talked about to be simply a result of lacking bass and treble. I wondered if "liquid vocals" might be a result of low-order harmonics. But what I found was that the little tube amps work quite well. A good tube amp sounds very nice, in my opinion.

I think that for what they are expected to do, tube amps do very well - surprisingly well, in my opinion. They are a hell of a lot of fun to play with, in the same sense that shortwave radio is fun to play with. And they really sound very nice too. I can easily see that's why they are so "addictive" with lots of audiophiles these days. But the high powered, high quality transistor amps are excellent too. That gives you the ability to have dynamic range that is impossible with less power. Having a good clean current source ensures that the rubber meets the road.

How they sound, ahhh. Dynamics are real, percussion and brass just fly out into the room. The bass is so good that a bass playing friend of mine built some after one listening session(no kidding). The Pi's do overtones and upper harmonics very honestly. I now feel that as a trend, a lot of the audiophile speakers out there, win the fight for good overtones at the expense of the fundamentals. I still hear all of the air, breath and texture, but with many speakers I hear a wet breathy, 3 foot wide mouth in space. With the Pi I hear somebody singing. A person, with a nose and a throat and heaven forbid a chest. Maybe it's boring, but when people sing, I just want it to sound like somebody standing over there singing. I helped my brother record a song last week and when I played it on the Pi's I freaked. I was sitting next to my brother all day hearing each lead, harmony and instrumental live. (home studio/no booth, my brother had cans on.) I mixed it after the parts were all laid down, through quality studio gear, so I know what it sounds like. On the Pi's it sounds like what we heard in our brains. All this from a "sand amp" powerd pair of Pi's, Wow!
Thomas