Thanks Grant. I hear you had a good time with Howard and the Green Man at the VTV show, although both Howard and Dean said the show was a bit disappointing other than the Edgarhorn room(?).
Baroque_lover - Do a search on the forums here under "arro" and you will find two or three threads where Arro owners recommend the amps they prefer. My bet is that you'd be very happy with one of the Prima Luna's, Cayin or Jolida selections which are all very affordable, and all are mentioned in those threads as being a good combination (I added the Prima Luna as it'd be a good bet too). Again, if you don't like tinkering choose an auto-biased option (the Jolida's are all manual-bias). A good observation that I missed from Avguygeorge - indeed there are compromises with SET....it does not do everything well, and does, as I said, require a very careful matching of components (good call). If you stray occasionally from vocals and strings, and want some 'impact' and mastery of more complex, layered music at a slight sacarafice in holography, I'd recommend a KT88 based amp. If you really hate any kind of hands-on with your components, and prefer to set-it and forget it, then I'd suggest you stick to an SS option and look for one that excels at vocals and strings (which would probably be touted here and elsewhere as a "tube-like" SS amp....hey, go figure!). In this case I'd push the Aleph 3/30 someone recommended already, or my own SS selection, a Portal Panache. Though they will bring some tube-like qualities to your listening experience, in my experience, silly as it may be, they do not posess the strengths of tubes in an undistilled form. On the other hand, they do bring to the table some SS strengths (very detailed, muscle to the low-end to write home about, as well as mastery of more complex, layered music), which you may appreciate in listening to orchestral and opera selections. IMO they won't do vocals and strings as well as a good tube amp. Damn, I practically jabbed my eye out with my knee that time. I'd better go get some ice to put on it!
Marco
Baroque_lover - Do a search on the forums here under "arro" and you will find two or three threads where Arro owners recommend the amps they prefer. My bet is that you'd be very happy with one of the Prima Luna's, Cayin or Jolida selections which are all very affordable, and all are mentioned in those threads as being a good combination (I added the Prima Luna as it'd be a good bet too). Again, if you don't like tinkering choose an auto-biased option (the Jolida's are all manual-bias). A good observation that I missed from Avguygeorge - indeed there are compromises with SET....it does not do everything well, and does, as I said, require a very careful matching of components (good call). If you stray occasionally from vocals and strings, and want some 'impact' and mastery of more complex, layered music at a slight sacarafice in holography, I'd recommend a KT88 based amp. If you really hate any kind of hands-on with your components, and prefer to set-it and forget it, then I'd suggest you stick to an SS option and look for one that excels at vocals and strings (which would probably be touted here and elsewhere as a "tube-like" SS amp....hey, go figure!). In this case I'd push the Aleph 3/30 someone recommended already, or my own SS selection, a Portal Panache. Though they will bring some tube-like qualities to your listening experience, in my experience, silly as it may be, they do not posess the strengths of tubes in an undistilled form. On the other hand, they do bring to the table some SS strengths (very detailed, muscle to the low-end to write home about, as well as mastery of more complex, layered music), which you may appreciate in listening to orchestral and opera selections. IMO they won't do vocals and strings as well as a good tube amp. Damn, I practically jabbed my eye out with my knee that time. I'd better go get some ice to put on it!
Marco