2. amps-preamps
  3. 1064805490

Where to go from here? upping the tube ante

I have a Macintosh C2200 tube preamp and MC2102 tube amp (KT88). They are fine components and I'm very pleased with them. However, just in the interest of curiosity I'm wondering where one can go from here? In other words, what components would give me more than what I'm getting with the Macintosh pair? (I've upgraded the 12AX7 tubes in the preamp which led to a nice improvement.)

More of what you say! More music! OK, truthly more naturalness and ease. Not more sounding live, because that's not the point here, but having a violin or piano sound more like the real thing. But musicality is key.

I have an Audio Note balanced DAC and adding it to my system was a revelation over my EMC-1. I guess I would say I'd someday like to look forward to the same improvement with the amp/preamp. But, if the Macintosh are hard to beat please state your opinion.

Additional components:
Electrocompaniet EMC-1 UP used as transport
Tannoy D500 speakers
Audience Au24 interconnects and speaker cables
Acoustic Zen MC2 digital cable
Blue Circle Music Ring
BC and Audience power cords

Looking forward to your thoughts. Thanks.
budrew
budrew OP
467 posts
 
Bid63, No sore spot at all : ) Please, all thoughts welcome. The Mcintosh is great and I doubt that I will do anything new in that department, at least for a long time. They seem to be sleepers; people are quick to shrug off Mcintosh. But, as I learn more about component designs I just get curious about how things compare.

I've actually begun to look into turntables since I'll have so many from my grandfather. Thought I might get a decent Rega as a simple answer for now. Someday anyway. My grandfather also had a Tandberg reel-to-reel with lots of tapes. Could be fun to explore.
bwhite
807 posts
 
Budrew, I use the same Mullard 12AX7's (CV4004) and the 12AT7's from Upscale in my Mac and they are leagues better than the original tubes. That said, this vintage (80's) Mullard isn't supposed to be the best available.

I plan to try to find something better.

Now.. for the real deal. GEC KT88's will make your amp much more natural sounding. I was blown away when I discovered that having a pair of GEC KT88's in there along side the rest of the Svetlana KT88's made a monumental improvement in tonality and listenability. I since purchaed 6 more GEC's but discovered that the amp sounds best with Two Svetlana's and six GEC's. Running with all eight GEC's was too much of a good thing... Having a single Svetlana on each channel opened up the midrange without losing the splendor of the GEC. Nice.

I'd suggest you give the GEC's a try. The MC2102 is softer sounding than the MC2000 and as a result, may require less GEC's to get the same result.

Recently a friend of mine took this advice and inserted two GEC KT88's in his Conrad Johnson P8 amps - (which hold 16 KT88's). The improvement made by having only two GEC's in his amp was even more substantial than what I had in the Mac.
fiddler
581 posts
 
Bwhite, I thought you had a Berning ZH 270?

Did you buy one and not like it? It has always been on my audition list.
budrew OP
467 posts
 
Bwhite, Thanks for the info. Are there any concerns about matching different tube brands in the amp at the same time? I found a review of several KT88s and they found the Electro-Harmonix to be the clear winner, though they did not include any GEC tubes, of which I've heard there are many variations.
bwhite
807 posts
 
Hi Fiddler, I've never owned a Berning.
More to discover