Rogue 88 vs 90

Tradio,

I had an 88 and a tempest (dip-switched to use a 99 as the preamp) that I used in a biamp configuration with a pair of Silverline Audio Sonata III. I now have two stereo 90's that replaced the 88 and the tempest. There is a substantial difference! The difference is not the volume you can reach with the extra power but what the extra power does to the sound. With the 90's the music seems tighter with more immediate presence. Tough to describe with words. Also, there are no fans in the 90. Hope this helps.

The fan in the 88 is a huge issue with me. I owned it for about a year. You aways knew it was there whirling away. They should open it up and remove the fan. Also it never seemed to have enough power. Always broke up under pushing the volume.
I also owned the Magnum 99 which I ended up getting rid of. First was the volume control. Hated it. I also didn't like the fact that when you removed the cover on the 99, you had a very unstable piece of gear. The whole chassis flexes and every time you go to change a tube, you think you are going to break the board in half.
I do have the Magnum M120's which I will keep for a while. Only because I can't afford to change right now. If I could, I would. I have an original pair with the switches on the inside. I just ordered new tubes and I am not looking foward to changing them. Hope I don't break a solder joint on the flimsy board.

I never had a problem with the fan in my 88, I never hear it. It also has plenty of power for my speakers, but yes, the build is a little flimsy. The circuit board should have some more bracing so it does not flex so much when changing a tube. Otherwise it's not really an issue unless for some reason you need to move it around with the cover off.

My problem with the 88 is it's killed off 2 KT-88's within a year and I don't really play it that much. Mark tells me that the Stereo 90's tubes are ran at half the bias of the 88 which will make them last longer, and that's fine with me.

I'm just really wondering if anyone can tell me about the sound differences between the 2 models?

Why not spring for the 120's? I dought there is a huge diffrence between the 2. Boy is these a big diffrence between the 120's and the zeus. There is no " build " problem on this 200 lb amp.

ah yes Scottht trolling about rogue amps again
I don't trust Scottht's opinion.
Whenever he posts his poor review of Rogue, someone contradicts him, yet he moves to another forum and posts the same b.s. again
I read one where he moaned about quality issues, and then many people chimed and in said he doesn't know what he is talking about, so he moved to another forum and posted the same garbage again
tin eared Scottht - stop trolling and you won't pull out the anti troll in me

Really, you dug up a seven year old thread to bad mouth someone? Makes one wonder who the real troll is.