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Finally stepping into the hobby after 30 years of watching from the sidelines

Ok, so I hope you are all ok with a longwinded post from a first time user of the forum.  I have been obsessed with vinyl and tubes since my dad played records for me as a 5 year old.  My wife and I are finally in a place that we can take the leap into the scene.  We want to grow our system over time and may even create 2-3 systems along the way as we have a bed and breakfast where we want to make analog part of the theme. 

We have made up our mind that our first speakers will be Vandersteen 2CE sigs.  That is about as far as we have gotten.  We definitely want to power them with tubes and have very little idea of where to start.  Obviously the mainstream option would be a Mcintosh mc275 and our local HiFi salesman would LOVE to sell us a pair of those.  However, we know that there are several cheeper/better options out there and would love some input from the board.  We'd like to keep the first amp under $3,000, but we aren't locked into that.  Keep in mind that we are ok starting with a single amp and then adding a second one along the way to mono them.  Also, we would love some help with a table/arm/cartridge!  One with an integrated phono stage is fine to start with and we would again be open to upgrading and adding a stand alone phono stage later on.  

We will be doing some electrical work soon to run a 40 amp fuse to the BnBs espresso machine and would be open to setting up a dedicated line for our main system at that time so that we can have clean power.  Has any one had any experience with this?  Any ideas or recommendations that you may have would be a big help here! 

Thank you all in advance, and we are really excited to finally be part of the scene! 
cottguy
inna
7,923 posts
 
I took a quick look, and it appears that within this price range there is nothing with phono stage and decent power except Rogue.
Does anyone know anything about Icon Audio or Cayin ? But no phono stage and less power.than Rogue Cronus Magnum. Rogue must be selling those by the truck loads.
adg101
1,063 posts
 
Quicksilver Audio 120 Mono's. New a little outside your budget but worth looking into. Probably not much luck finding a used pair.

Not tubes, but I'll throw this out. Used ModWright KWA 100 SE. Will sound sweet on Vandy's, with no heat or tube replacement cost over the years. Add a ModWright LS100 preamp and you're good to go, especially if you pick one up with the phono option. Vandy 2Ce's are already sweet sounding speakers so don't be afraid to throw a great SS amp on them, especially with a tube preamp.
oleschool's avatar
oleschool
722 posts
 
the cayins are nice ,wasnt there an arc for around that ,without phono though
stevecham
3,340 posts
 
I had the 2CE sigs and powered them satisfactorily with a Conrad Johnson CAV50. I now use a Manley Stingray for Thiel 2.4s. This would be plenty of power for the Vandersteens and will sound terrific.
mesch
3,530 posts
 
If thinking of an integrated amplifier and want an all tube system I agree with the Rogue Cronus suggestion. Within budget, has phonostage, and would mate well with the Vandys.

If willing to go the hybrid route, another option is the Vincent 237 integrated. It has tube pre and SS amp and delivers 150wpc at 8 ohms, 300 at 4 ohms. A great sounding unit, lacks phonostage however. 
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