Have you thought of a tube preamp or buffer before you give up the Classe amp?
Tube amplifier suggestion for 101 dB speakers
Hello All,
I've been using the Tyler Acoustics PD30s with Classé Sigma solid state preamp and amp combination.
These speakers have two 15" woofers and a horn tweeter, 4 ohm, sensitivity 101 dB.
The above combination is not the best, especially for complex rock music, the highs start to distort, they are harsh, just bad. Never had tube gears, but after reading a bit, these speakers apparently scream for tubes. Actually somebody brought over a hobbyist-made tube amp and yes, the speakers were tamed.
I'm willing to switch to a tube amp but prefer to keep the ss preamp.
Can anybody recommend a few good tube amp matches here, for a max of 3K new or used. Room is just a good medium size. I want something that I can keep for many years if possible and being somehow flexible to tube rolling.
Thanks.
I've been using the Tyler Acoustics PD30s with Classé Sigma solid state preamp and amp combination.
These speakers have two 15" woofers and a horn tweeter, 4 ohm, sensitivity 101 dB.
The above combination is not the best, especially for complex rock music, the highs start to distort, they are harsh, just bad. Never had tube gears, but after reading a bit, these speakers apparently scream for tubes. Actually somebody brought over a hobbyist-made tube amp and yes, the speakers were tamed.
I'm willing to switch to a tube amp but prefer to keep the ss preamp.
Can anybody recommend a few good tube amp matches here, for a max of 3K new or used. Room is just a good medium size. I want something that I can keep for many years if possible and being somehow flexible to tube rolling.
Thanks.
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- 49 posts total
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You mentioned that you'd like to keep the ss pre, however I'm going to recommend that you try a tube preamp for a couple reasons. The preamp tubes can and will tame the treble. Preamp tubes generally live much longer. And lastly, rolling preamp tubes is MUCH more feasible, for example there are basically no nos 6550( a popular power tube) tubes left anywhere, whereas even the most sought after preamp tubes are available. |
http://www.tubes4hifi.com VTA-120 You can get this 60 watt tube amp completely wired or in a kit, wired for around $1450 to $1650 depending on options. I built the M-125 mono blocks over 4 years ago and they still sound great. No frills in the chassis, stainless steel. From the web page - The VTA ST-120 is a 60 WATT PER CHANNEL amplifier built on the same ST-70 stainless steel chassis as the amp pictured above. The VTA ST-120 uses three custom wound USA made transformers and is available as a KIT amp or completely WIRED and tested. This amp has the same quality components as the VTA ST-70 listed above. The optional tube set has a GZ34/5AR4 rectifier, three 12AU7 driver tubes and a matched quad of 6550 tubes. The power transformer instead of 360-0-360 secondaries like the ST-70 has 420-0-420 secondaries and puts about 485 volts on the plates (pin 3) of the output tubes. The ST-70 puts about 420 volts on the plates. The stack lamination on this transformers is about 2.70 inches tall - my ST-70's power transformer stack is about 2.05 inches high. This transformer weighs about 4 pounds more than the ST-70 transformer and is rated at 425 milliamps of current flow. The output transformers have 4200 ohm primaries, 40% ultralinear screen taps and are 3 7/8" tall, 3 1/4" wide and 3 1/8" deep (about 1/2" taller, 3/8" wider and 1/4" deeper than a stock A-470 output transformer). Each output transformer weighs about 2 pounds more than a stock A-470 output transformer. The power storage caps have a higher capacity and voltage rating than the VTA ST-70. |
- 49 posts total