The CJ Premiere 12 was the best vintage tube amplifier ever.

I had the Premier 8A, and can concur with Erik on this. The 12’s were essentially a lower power (half the output tubes) 8A. I would think the 12’s would be at least as good or better given the speaker isn’t too power hungry. When I see this teflon upgrade, I can’t help but think don’t mess with that amp. That said, I’ve yet to hear one so there’s that. I should ad the Premiers don’t have a tight, detailed. articulate bass, but what they do well is pretty darned special.

Best (insert just about anything here) = how long is a ball of string?

100 %...just agree that these are really good amps. I didn't make that very clear (-:

I find this hard to believe. The Harmon Kardon Citation 2 had/has wider bandwidth and lower distortion (by half). Of course it dates from 1959-1960 so is a good 30 years older, but if properly refurbished with new filter capacitors in the power supplies and good coupling capacitors it can put a lot of modern amplifiers to shame. The output transformers have bandwidth to 100KHz. It is certainly one of the better amps from the golden age of hifi. I like it more than any of the vintage Marantz amps, but of course any conversation like this is relying heavily on opinion; saying something is 'best' is always a difficult position, especially when it comes to audio!

@atmasphere

I was deliberately trolling you to come and chime in. :)

Best,

E