REL has outdone itself with the stance and wooden grille of the S/550 subwoofer. Even a six-pack sits lightly.
It's the Summer of Sound: From the immersion of a subwoofer six-pack to the grace of a Japanese 300B tube amp.
Our next in-store event, Sounds of Summer, will be on May 9, 11 am to 2 pm. As we wrote last week, this is your chance to experience our main system from AXPONA 2026, featuring a Phasemation amp with the Klipsch La Scala AL6 and REL 212 Black Label.
The second system is your chance to experience another AXPONA favorite, REL's six-pack of the S/550 subwoofers, looking absolutely resplendent with their wooden grilles. Our third system brings together some of our favorite, highly accessible components, showing that high-fidelity sound is available across a wide range of budgets.
System One
- Aurender N50 music server/streamer
- Berkeley Audio Design Alpha Reference Series 3P DAC
- Pathos Kratos hybrid integrated amplifier
- Fyne Audio F1-8S floorstanding speakers
- REL Acoustics S/550 subwoofer six-pack
- AudioQuest Niagara 7000 power conditioner
System Two
- Grimm MU2 streaming DAC
- Feickert Trio SE turntable with Kuzma tonearm and Phasemation PP-2000 MC cartridge
- Phasemation EA-550 Mono Phono EQ Amplifier (Pair)
- Phasemation SA-1500 integrated amp
- Klipsch La Scala floorstanding speakers
- REL Acoustics 212 Black Label subwoofer pair
System Three
- Aurender A20 streaming DAC
- Parasound JCM250 monoblock power amps
- Monitor Audio Platinum 200 3G floorstanding speakers
- REL Acoustics Carbon Special Black Label subwoofer pair
- AudioQuest Niagara 5000 power conditioner
The Meze Headphone Room
The Meze Audio headphone room has become a much-loved staple at our events. David Denson, West Coast sales ambassador for Meze Audio, is always in attendance and spends the day setting people up with the perfect amp and headphone combinations for their tastes.
Come hear the complete high-end range of open and closed backs from this Romanian brand. Listen to them with tube amps, hybrids, and solid-state amps to get to know your preferred hi-fi sound presentation. This is information that you can apply to any system you're building, whether a desktop headphone stack or a room-filling audiophile city skyline.
The 300B Vacuum Tube: What's the Draw?
The Phasemation SA-1500 is a Class-A, 9 W, SET integrated amp using two 6SN7 and two 300B tubes.
Single-ended triode amps powered by 300B tubes are the audiophile Holy Grail. Let's look at why.
Attendees at our Sounds of Summer event will hear one of the world's greatest 300B SET amps, the Phasemation SA-1500. Built to an obsessive Japanese standard, the SA-1500 is a Class-A, 9 W SET with 2 x 6SN7 and 2 x 300B tubes in a dual-mono configuration. Output power is 9 W, which is plenty of power for the 103 dB-sensitive Klipsch La Scala AL6.
That SET Sound
The single-ended triode (SET) amplifier design typically uses just one output tube per channel. Running in Class-A, this tube handles the entire waveform, so unlike push-pull Class-AB designs, there's no handover of the signal between power tubes, and no resultant crossover distortion. The downside is that the power is much lower.
Unlike Class-A push-pull designs, which also don't have crossover problems, the SET doesn't cancel out second-order harmonics. So you get that beautiful burnished midrange, but lose out a little on authority and grip.
Throw in the 300B
The 300B was introduced in 1938 by Western Electric to amplify telephone signals. It's a directly heated triode, which means the signal-emitting cathode is also the filament, carrying the heater current and serving as the electron source modulated by the signal.
Indirectly heated tubes have the advantage of electrically isolating the heater circuit, and having a far more stable emitter, but as 300B fans will point out, they lose the directness and startling "in the room" feel of the simpler 300B.
Phasemation Meet La Scala
As you read more about SET amps with 300B tubes, you'll see that the trade-off is that these amps have less grip, resulting in looser and more bloomy bass. Phasemation compensates for this with individual right and left output transformers made specially by Lundahl of Sweden. And the final magic touch comes from the dealer's experience and their ability to trial and error multiple combinations. A snappy, slappy speaker like the fully horn-loaded Klipsch La Scala AL6 on the end of a lush, romantic 300B amp is one of the most magical pairings we've heard in a long, long time.
Come hear this combination for yourself at our Sounds of Summer event on May 9.