Old Amps that can still Kick Butt

Kick butt. What a joke. 

Set that old tube amp out by the curb, and you'll be ahead of the rush.
Class D is already starting to make such amps worthless sonically and in time, in terms of valuation. In a couple years such amps will be fairly worthless, and rightly so, as they will have slid from occupying a status of HiFi to MidFi. Class D is now so good that I would not dream of using any amp, SS or Tube, over five years old. It would be a waste of my time to even assess such amps. 

I predict that in a couple years those who are serious about an assault on SOTA will be looking to Class D to achieve it. Those who want a bargain will be looking to the other genres - an inversion of the historic norm regarding amps. It's going to be come bloody among amp manufacturers going forward. Not that I wish ill on other SS and tube amp makers, but such profound technological and sonic progress will not be impeded by nostalgia. The only justification that one might have to use an old tube amp will be that it is cheap. Looking at the other two threads started by the OP with the same dismissive statement, that is perhaps the motivation of this thread - pretend old, cheap gear performs as good.   :) 

SOTA sound is changing for the better right NOW, and Class D is a primary driver of it. Class A, A/B and tube amps? No, they are doing nothing of the sort. The glorious future of Class D amplification HAS arrived, and it will only get better! Cynical? Skeptical? You lose out. 

If anyone would like insight on this, read my review of the Legacy Audio i.V4 Ultra Amplifier review at Dagogo.com

Perhaps it boils down to what matches your speakers?

My restored McIntosh MC30’s (especially), and even my rusty old mc240 find. Absolute sonic bliss

BEL 1001, for sure...

@atmasphere said: "Most of the amps listed here will sound fine at low volume. But if you want to blast they’ll get painful. The mark of a good system is one that sounds smooth and detailed (not brightness masquerading as detail) even at high volume."

I do not disagree because I simply don't have the experience to do so (and I do not have golden ears) but I will say that my Proceed HPA2 mentioned above, driving the Aerial Acoustic 8Bs through an AR LS-16 tube preamp sounds good as high as I care to crank it before the neighbors start to complain.  Remarkably, it sounds pretty good at lower volumes as well. There is no point in the volume range where they get too bright or too muddy for that matter. But, as @sameyers1 mentioned these speakers and this amp seem to have been made for each other.


The one exception is overly DR compressed recordings. The louder they get the worse they sound.....on all but my lowest end systems.