Looking To Match A Tube Amp With A Pair Of Audio Note AN-K/Spe

I've heard Audio Note speakers at Deja Vu Audio in Northern VA and Vu had them set up with a Synthesis integrated amp. They sounded very, very nice. The Synthesis brand has been on my radar since then. Deja Vu struck me as being the model of how a good audio retailer should operate. Each of his listening rooms sounded great, each clearly set up with a lot of attention to detail, and Vu was very generous with his time and experience, and not at all pushy. A stark contrast to dealing with some of the 'used car salesmen' one encounters at rival stores.

Rooze,

I completely agree with you about Deja Vu Audio and Synthesis.  I too, really like their amps and think that the A40 (KT66, built in DAC) would be a fantastic choice with the AN-K, except that the OP has a Backert linestage and is only looking for a power amp.

I own a Deja Vu custom-built linestage and a Deja Vu custom-built stereo power amp based on a Western Electric 133a amplifier (has genuine Western Electric parts, including the correct input and output transformers). I actually like the 133a amp more than i do the Audio Note Kageki amps I also own.  This store is certainly a place to discover gear you will not find anywhere else and experience a different kind of sound that is a far cry from conventional high end. 

He however, is squarely in the SET camp and suggested Quests given my price range and need for a dedicated power amp.

@scottya118 SETs have this way of more and more limited bandwidth as you increase power. Usually this means 7-8 Watts (usually via a 300b) is as much power as you can get and still call it 'hifi'. Since output transformer bandwidth falls off with power (its not the tube's fault!) usually its the bass octave that suffers as bass response is usually the hardest to get when designing an output transformer.

That is why I recommended a push-pull amplifier! A 20 Watt or even a 60 Watt PP amp will have wider bandwidth (for example the H/K Citation 2 has bandwidth past 100KHz) and will have much lower distortion.

To give you an idea of the latter, a typical SET is 10% distortion at full power (which is why you usually don't want to run them past about 20% of full power...). A PP amp might be 1%. BUT- and this is a big one- the distortion of the PP amp is considerably lower at the power level that an SET makes at full power! Depending on the amp, by a couple of orders of magnitude.

Distortion obscures detail plain and simple. With a good PP amp its no problem making out detail in the rear of the sound stage that you can't with the best SETs.

I know Vu, we've shown at audio shows in the past and he's a good guy, but in this case I think he's giving you bad advice: your room is a bit on the large side- and the Audio Note speakers are not as efficient as they claim IMO. That's why I recommend a bit more power than will be practical with an SET.

Food for thought and thanks for the response Atmasphere. Vu's tube preferences for the K's were 300B's and 6L6's. That conversation and your comments bring something like the Canary M-90 to mind. Anyone had experience with that one? -Scott

I am a BIG fan of the 6L6 tube, but, that would mean a pushpull amp.  The KT 66 is a very similar sounding tube.  Both have a rich, harmonically dense sound without sounding murky or sluggish or soft on dynamics (some of my personal issue with some 300B amps).  I love real or clones of Western Electric 124 amps (350B tube, which is the very expensive equivalent of the 6L6 tube) running the 6L6 tube, and other 6L6 vintage amps, like some RCA amps and Northern Electric amps.  There are not that many current production 6L6 amps because they put out less power than roughly comparable tube types (e.g., EL34, KT88, 6550) which makes it hard to market a 6L6 amp to buyers who seem to only recognize power as a quality factor.