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ARC...D-90B or D-115MKII? - Driving Maggie 1.6s

Greetings!

I'm about to venture into tubes and don't want to spend a ton of money. I'm looking at these two amps for approximately the same price.

Is one of these better than the other? I'm expecting delivery of my Magnepan 1.6s on Thursday. It seems like both amps would have enough power to drive them w/o much difficulty, so I'm just looking for comments from anyone who's familiar with these pieces.

BTW - The rest of the system will be:

Audio Research CD-1
Audio Research LS-9
Interconnects are Homegrown Audio Super Silver and Audioquest Opal X3. Speaker cables will be either Audioquest GR-8 or Goertz MI2.

Thanks so much,

Dan
danheather
franklapdog's avatar
franklapdog
103 posts
 
I've owned both amps you are considering and if I had my choice,I'de go with the 115.More of everything the 90b does.Just make sure the output tubes are in decent shape as they are 100 a pair to replace from ARC.Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about either piece and enjoy the music.
brulee
564 posts
 
Hi Danheather, with a few modifications, both amps are very good. I preferred the D-90, but that was with the original CLSs.
danheather OP
108 posts
 
Thanks to you both, Brulee and Franklapdog! I'm really leaning toward the D-115MKII.

That's interesting that the D-90 had sufficient power to drive the original CLSs. My good friend just bought a pair and is powering them with an Adcom 5802 (300wpc). Perhaps it's true that tube watts are more powerful than solid state? The CLSs seem to be VERY inefficient. If the D-90 will drive them, then the D-115 should be MORE than enough with my Magnepans, no?

Any advice on which tubes to look for?

Also, since this will be my first experience with tubes, is there any test/calibration equipment that I'll need to keep the amp going. What about resources to learn about biasing the tubes, etc.??

Thanks so much!
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