Bonus Episode: Interview with Decware's Steve Deckert 

You can be justly proud, and we're certainly very impressed as well! The world's a better place because of Decware!

Hi Devon! Miss you guys so much! I'm sad no Decfest this year, but you know I'll be there next year!

😊 what a wonderful thing to read here! I would love to have one of these soon.

I hope to buy one of his amps soon. I have built 3 of his subwoofers: the Wicked One, the Housewrecker and the Inverted Wedge. All very impressive. I built the Wicked One back in 2005 and it's still going strong using Decware 10" subs😁

Did he ever tell you the story of how he stole my Cornet phono circuit design?

brian Ruhl , too bad both don’t play well together! 📻

@@De132an maybe ohm from years gone by....I don't know about today?

Steve still hosts "Decfest" the first weekend of October. People from all over the US come to hang out, talk audio, listen...hell, each year there have been people from other countries making the trip! I remember Steve's old house on Adams street I think it was, and even jammed in his basement with Steve on the drums. Wonderful memories there.

Call them and odds are that Steve will gladly take the time to speak with you. I own several Decware products and they’re lifelong keepers.

Steve is exactly as he seems...in fact, he's way smarter than his humble, mellow tone shows. Definitely get an amp - try out the Zen 25th amp if you can swing it and have efficient speakers.

I believe it was in 1998 when I first started selling this amp which I just called the 'Zen Amp' because it was so simple... and because the original tube compliment was inspired by a Zenith Console Stereo from 1959 that really caught my ear at the time. Then I found out with some embarrassment that Nelson Pass already had a popular solid state version of nearly the same thing called the Zen Amp. In fact we had a phone conversation where he graciously offered to simply call his the Pass Zen amp and I would call mine the Decware Zen Triode amp even though at the time I could barely pay my electric bill and he had a seriously successful audio company. From that point forward I became more familiar with his work and frankly have always since looked at him as one of my heroes and a gracious one at that. He has a lot to teach. I have heard several of his amps, one in my own listening room, and they are marvelous. I have a very small list of solid state amplifiers that I enjoy and Nelson's are on it. -Steve Deckert

The mainstream audio world does not like Decware because they expose the overpriced audio jewellery racket that exists at the shows and dealers.

I'd wait to hear the amp before making him your hero.

what speakers are you using?

Steve is good people, and his amps are amazing.

Hi - I’ve been thinking about trying exactly the same rig. Question - how big is your listening space (ie roughly how far are you from your speakers). Thanks!

@@jonwatchesnyc8777 I have a small room about 12X11. It’s a dedicated room and the speakers are about three feet away from both the side and rear walls. Speakers are about 6.5 feet apart and I sit about 6 feet away but sometimes a bit closer. I don’t have a great room but it’s well set up and I get very nice soundstage layering. I never feel like I need more power and rarely turn the volume past 12.

@@jimgroce9487 thanks so much for the quick reply! really appreciate the info; my amp only goes up to 11, and so hopefully I can get good results as well

Whats your favorite amp?

I own an all Decware system [expect sources] and use his HDT speakers.My Naim system isn't even in the same class,let alone cost.

If you buy 6 you might want to have a powerful air conditioner installed in your room as well.

@@mikecees2230 Indeed! However, it cuts both ways ... as those tubes would supplement the home's heating during those cold Midwestern nights.

That vid was posted at 8:01am.

Name and model of your friends 100db sensitive speakers please? I'm considering one of these flea amps and collecting info on appropriate loudspeakers. Thank you.

@@geol7408 They're custom speakers..... They use Eminence 15" coaxial drivers (with center horn) with an "unknown" tweeter. (The late amp builder Don Allen of Arizona designed, built, and once owned these speakers.) I have a similar setup with Seismic Audio "T Driver" compression tweeters, still excellent, but don't sound quite as good. (I do not own Decware amplifiers.)

Basically anything 92 dB sensitivity and above work well. I use two different open baffle setups - one pair with 8” full range(96dB) & one pair with 10” full range(99dB)

geno are those the speakers Decware sells?

He needs to record for Calm application to help people sleep, his voice is so boring! I have never met a person like this!!!!

Again, in a smaller room, or near field 88 dB speakers/4 ohm will sound great at modest playback levels. When I originally designed and built the Zen Triode amplifiers 88/89dB speakers were all I had in my arsenal and they took me on a late night trip that lasted 4 years. About every two weeks I would get frustrated because it sounded so damn good I wanted to hear it really loud and it wouldn't go there. About twice a year I would put in a 100 watt AV receiver on them and crank it for 10 minutes which was all I could ever take, because by comparison it sounded so bad. In fact, as soon as I got the tube amp hooked-up again my mind was on getting back that wonderful sound I had, and I no longer cared about playing it loud. You could say the experience killed the urge. This would last for a month or so and then I would do it again. Now, that I listen to that same amplifier on 100dB speakers, I know I was cheating myself in those early days, but hey -- without that incredible tease I would have never moved to the next step.

It would have to be the Rachael vs Had sweet 807. Not the Decware se84.

The sound will be more dynamically alive and have more three dimensional presence. And tonally richer.

That would be pretty cool.

Ha-ha! Yep! 😆

Works great a DAC or CD player -- both having an industry standard output level of 2 volts or more. The input sensitivity of the older Zen Triodes was about 2 volts, the new models are about a volt and a half. That means a CD player will drive it to full power without issues. It also means the input gain/volume control will have to be turned up nearly to full before the amplifier clips. As for speakers, 84dB will work in the near field with one of these amps, but anything else will be volume limited meaning it will be a lot of fun, it will sound amazing, but it won't be a permanent pairing because it won't get loud enough to satisfy ALL of you moods.

@@decwareproducts Thanks for reply.Where would i find a 240 volt version,im in uk.

No, will not work well w/ that Harbeth. Not a good match, i have the Falcom LS3/5a’s and they are not efficient enough to enjoy with Steve’s amps.

Preamp with subwoofer out or Rel sub would do.

Although I do not have the Super Zen Triode amp, I do have a flea watt single-ended triode (SET) integrated amplifier, the Cayin HA-1A (original version), which outputs only about one Watt to the speaker outputs in SET mode (it also has a switch to use Ultralinear mode with about 2 W output, but I prefer SET mode). With that amplifier, I found that it is best to use a powered subwoofer with speaker/high level inputs and a built-in adjustable crossover so that I can run speaker wires from the amplifier to the subwoofer speaker/high level inputs, and speaker wires from the subwoofer speaker/high level outputs to the speakers. Since the powered subwoofer's amp provides the power for driving the subwoofer, the subwoofer does not tax the output power of the amp, freeing the amp to just drive the main stereo speakers above the crossover frequency set by the subwoofer's crossover. Since the input to the subwoofer's amplifier is from the output of the SET amplifier, it retains much of the SET amp's sonic characteristics in the bass, but with more grip and control due to the higher power of the subwoofer's amplifier. This method of connecting powered subwoofers is recommended by Paul McGowan of PS Audio: www.psaudio.com/askpaul/the-best-way-to-connect-a-subwoofer/ and www.psaudio.com/askpaul/the-best-way-to-connect-a-subwoofer-2/ . My stereo speakers are Caintuck Audio's Betsy Baffle speakers and the subwoofer is Caintuck Audio's Alpha Bass Baffle with the Dayton Audio SA230 230W Subwoofer Amplifier provided by Caintuck Audio. Here is a link to Caintuck Audio's products: www.caintuckaudio.com/Products.html Note that Decware lists the Caintuck Audio Betsy among the high efficiency speakers compatible with Decware amps: www.decware.com/newsite/Caintuck.html . I also have Aperion Audio Planar-Magnetic Flat Ribbon Super Tweeters connected to the Betsy Baffle speakers to fill-in for the dip in response of the Betsy speakers between about 12 kHz and 20 kHz. See www.aperionaudio.com/products/aperionaudio-planar-magnetic-ribbon-super-tweeter-speaker?variant=717072172092556 Although it does take some tweaking of positioning and crossover settings to get the Alpha, Betsy, and Aperion speakers set up to play well together, once you hit the right combination, the sound is glorious with my 1 W Cayin amp in SET mode and Little Bear P8 preamplifier, IMHO - YMMV. I am, however, thinking about replacing the Cayin HA-1A amp with the Decware Super Zen Triode amp in order to about double the output power while retaining SET mode. It isn't that I need more loudness per se, but I do need a little more headroom/dynamic range for peaks in large scale orchestral music, which sounds a little constrained with the one watt Cayin amp in SET mode.

@@luminiferous1960 Thank you very much for your comment. Informative, good advice, and very helpful to me. : ) I have been trying to gather information and plan for a dream system I want to put together in better times. I had been doubtful about using a powered sub because I like minimalism and was concerned about the effects of another amp and power supply in the circuit, plus the concern for what might be an inferior amp built into the sub. What you say makes very good sense to me, however. I had almost forgotten about the benefits of removing the load of the bass from the main amp. I also appreciate your comment about the sub amp retaining the characteristics of the SET amp when connected in this way. With that, you have laid my doubts to rest and given me renewed confidence. Thank you once again. : D

@@HareDeLune You're welcome. I'm glad that I could provide some useful information to you. Enjoy your audiophile journey. Remember that part of the fun can be trying new things and learning new things, and that you learn as much from the mistakes as the successes, sometimes even more. You alone are the judge of what does or does not work for you. So go forward boldly with your renewed confidence, and have fun!

I have used a separate subwoofer amp as described here and I have also used a crown amp with an internal digital crossover. That is my current setup. My sub amp was just OK quality and I found the crown to be tighter and gave more impact. Bought on eBay.

doriarama I don’t think that Mr. Gutenberg has courage(nerve) to test them and stay honest in comparison to other far more expensive speakers that he reviews...

@@JohnDoe-sp5jd Mr. Gutenberg always say good things about the Magnepan's speakers, which are not expensive speakers, so I don't think he is suffering from lack of "courage". :)

@@JohnDoe-sp5jd What a rude thing to say.

Steve must be doing something right!

Ideal is a strong word, but I like the Klipsch RP 600 M

Decware makes speakers as well

I believe they were his open baffle. I built a pair and have an anniversary amp and, well, I am barefoot most of the time.

I was using the 94db 1w/1m DNA2's located on our web site. That speaker has been my all around goto speaker for about two years, it's just so refined and well balanced and holographic. Then I switched to the the Zen Master Series open baffles which are closer to 100dB 1w/1m, which took things up another notch dynamically. Imagine a crossoverless full-range driver that is 15 inches in diameter that has a moving mass of 14.7 grams. The only thing that fast in my collection is my full-range electrostatic speakers by Acoustat - the monitor 4's with direct-drive servo-charged tube amps. Only these open baffles sound better because the amplification is so much better. And unlike the Acoustat monitors that took two people, lasers, tape marks all over the floor and about 2 days to get right, the open baffles sound good anywhere you set them. FAR more forgiving, and far less headache.

@@decwareproducts Thank you for your informative and gracious reply.

I am pretty sure he could make them with higher output but chooses not to ... for the sound.

@@TEH725 yes because he said he "didn't want to put a lot of tubes in the Signal Path" what you don't need to have with one tube at 160 Watts

The tubes referred to are the GM80 and GM100 if memory servers me right. They were used during the war as low frequency triodes. Their application was to drive a iron hammer that would ping Morris code on the rail road tracks to positions across enemy lines. As I understand it the first one had a range of around 75 miles and the bigger one over twice that distance. So while yes, you can create a single tube that puts out 100 watts class A triode but you will need a rather large voltage swing to drive it, also a 17 amp DC heater circuit, sunglasses for when you go into your listening room because it is so bright, and probably at least 3 stages or more to pass a signal to it. That means two resistors and one capacitor at minimum for each stage. A Zen Triode has only a single capacitor and two resistors, not to mention an incredible output tube that makes hi-end audio just plane a lot of fun. How many tubes the size of your thumb have a 10,000 hour rating with double thick glass, a highly refined and petite gold grid, and the bandwidth of a video tube with only 27 mills of current and 330 volts?

I would have to agree with that! I put a large photography light about 4 feet from my face and apparently forgot to turn it on. As audiophiles we can all relate to standing in front of amplifiers scratching our head as to why one won't turn on only to realize we didn't plug it in... this is like that.

I assume this is also how you shop for cars? $XXXX/HP? Such a silly metric for discussing amp quality.

JeffofArabica Thanks for the reply. However, your analogy is not logical. Any car of any horsepower will get me to the supermarket. But if I have normal efficiency speakers a couple of watts won’t do it. When I play classical music at concert levels I see continuous output up to 5 watts and peaks of 20 to 30. Call me frugal, but I wont pay $50,000 for a car or $1,000 for a couple watt amp. Regardless of “quality”.

May the tubular fleas that live in the sands of dead transistors come to feed upon your soul with grace and mercy!

You have entirely missed the point and it’s not worth trying to explain it to you. Happy listening.