Warm, Smooth yet Transparent Amp

Hi Mark,
Yes, if I go this route, I would be wiring 2 channel into the preamp and all digital sources would connect to the digital inputs on the receiver via fiber cables. But the preamp would have to possess a "tape monitor" out which the CJ Classic does not. From what is on agon at this moment, it would have to cost much more than my budget. I was hoping to keep it at $1,000.
Your suggestion about a tube amp is what I was thinking about last night. It would make life so much easier and hopefully cheaper. :)

Any suggestions on a decent tube amp under a grand? Used of course.

Thanks,
Bruce

At the risk of being called some kind of heretic, I'll make a suggestion of my own. I've been unhappy with my 2 channel system, swapping out components, all to no avail. I acquired some Paradigm Signature S6 in '09 and had been trying to build a system around them. It was tough, they are forward sounding with that beryllium tweeter.

I tried an Adcom system first, nice but the pre was flaky and would send loud bursts through the system at random. Then I heard about Emotiva and the price was sure right. Bought an XPA amp, ERC-1 cd player and an Anthem TLP-1. I found the TLP to be laid way back and soulless. Replaced it with an Emotiva XDA-1. Now things were too bright with my speakers, and still no soul or synergy/magic. Swapped in an old Denon ave(3803) I had to confirm, it was warmer but no synergy.

Thought I could do better with a disc player and replaced the ERC-1 with an Oppo 95. Better, but still lifeless. I would get sibilance at higher volumes with some tracks(actual distortion in the highs). Decided to dump the Emotiva amp and got a Parasound A21. Big improvement in sound, now I could see what I'd been missing. Sibilance was gone, very nice vocals and tighter/more accurate bass. But still no holographic sound stage, or 3D stage.

Got the XDA-1 out of the system, and plugged the Oppo straight into the amp. Better, but I experienced some volume limitations which made me want a dedicated pre. Got a NAD C372(integrated from 6 years ago) and used it as a pre. Better volume interaction, but still no soundstage magic. I got tired of swapping components, and was ready to throw in the towel, maybe i was just not spending enough and I'm not prepared to spend 2-3000 per component just to get some magic in the sound.

Then I was reading and this poster I trust on another forum mentioned to someone else how changing his speaker cables to Audioquest Type 4 had made a significant improvement, and he now swore by them. I did some research, and found results and mockery all over the net. Zeroed in on the Type 4 and found it's a solid core wire design with bigger gauge for the bass and smaller for the highs woven in a type of litz design with some other design specifics. I tried them, replacing some 12 gauge fine stranded OFC wire.

The difference was immediate and not subtle. It was like the music was somewhat out of focus before, not that i'd noticed it. But there was also more detail. And this sharpened up the soundstage. I could now localize instruments much better and even some on the left side of the left speaker, meaning I guess that the soundstage widened. It was an eye opener for me.

Mind you, I had better than run of the mill IC's that I'd acquired along the way, not sure if they helped. Bottom line, with all of the component changing you are doing, I haven't heard anyone mention if the cables might have a part to play. I'd humbly suggest buying some Audioquest Type 4 if you've never tried speaker cable upgrades. You can get in on the cheap, buying it by the foot at some of the on line dealers.

Might save you some green over more component upgrades.

Runnin,
Thanks for the input. I was running AQ type 4 from the beginning, when I first purchased my Arcam back in 2006. I used them up until about 5 months ago when I changed over to Canare 4s11. They seem a bit more mellow than the AQ.

I really think that going to tubes is the next logical move, whether it be a tube preamp or tube amp is still up in the air. Which is where I started. :) Has anyone heard or had any experience with Cary Rocket 88 amp? It's within my price point.

Keep your eyes open for a Music Reference RM10. Original series can be had for under $1k, but they don't come up often and they get snatched up quickly. Excellent amp for the money and fits the criteria in your original post. They're also very reliable and if by chance it does need to go in for service they're not that far from you, in Santa Barbara I believe.

Hopefully others will have suggestions, but under $1k will be tough. Also, keep in mind that for a "good" unit under $1k, you're probably looking at an older model so reliability will be an issue.

FWIW this is all about distortion. Solid state amps have a harshness due to trace amounts of odd ordered harmonics (5th and above) that the ear uses to sort out how loud a sound is. It is because of the latter fact that the human ear is very sensitive to these harmonics, and so even though they only show up in trace amounts (as far as our test equipment is concerned anyway) we hear it as harshness and brightness, even though the amp has a flat frequency response.

To get detail though you have to get rid of distortion, as the ear's masking principle means that distortion can block the presence of detail. This is why tubes are still here some 50 years on after being declared obsolete. They don't make those odd ordered harmonics in such great quantity, and so sound smoother.

You could say and rightly so that tubes more closely follow the rules of human hearing in this regard.

Now tubes can get bright too, like transistors, if you use a lot of loop negative feedback in the design (this is BTW one reason that transistors are bright- most transistor amps use feedback). Although feedback gets rid of some types of distortion, it does not do everything. This is because the amplifier circuit always has a propagation delay, a small but measurable length of time it takes for the signal to propagate from input to output.

Because of this the feedback signal is always arriving a little too late. As frequency is increased, this problem is exacerbated and results in trace amounts of odd ordered harmonics, which it is *supposed* to be getting rid of. You could add even more feedback, but you would need more gain in the amp to do that- IOW the carrot will always just slightly out of reach.

For this reason the smoothest sounding amps potentially will be ones that don't employ feedback.

When looking for smoothness and transparency, another way of describing this is linearity. When an amplifier is linear, it is low in distortion. But if it is to be low in distortion and lacking feedback, it will have to employ other techniques to keep distortion at bay.

One of these techniques is to use linear devices in the signal chain. Triodes are immediate and obvious choice. Another design feature that has long been known to be more linear is the class of operation- the most linear known is class A. Further, if the amp is fully balanced and differential throughout, it will be lacking the even ordered harmonics for which tubes are often faulted. Since these lower ordered harmonics usually have a lot more energy associated with them, they can obscure more detail although they add 'warmth'.

So there is a short list of features to look for- good luck and have fun!