Audio Research, AYON and Primaluna tube amplifiers.

@juanmanuelfangioii  I prefer a stereo tube amp and not an integrated because I already have Jeff Rowland integrated Continuum S2 and love it to death. I just need a tube amp to switch back and forth for diff sound.

Cool and both make wonderful tube amps. 

'For these Sonus Faber’s you need an amp that can almost double it’s wattage from 8ohm to 4ohm to 2ohm (eg: 100w 200w 400w) And that means amps that deliver hefty current. No tube/ Mosfet/Class D amp for these. You need big amp/s that have "bi-polar (bjt)" output stages this type of amp will do these speaker justice. As right through the bass and upper bass they are 2.5ohm, and at the low bass with 4ohms and -50degrees phase angle load (EPG), this can look like 1.5ohms to the amp.

Just a snippet from the Stereophile test results on these speakers.

"With an impedance magnitude that drops to 2.5 ohms throughout the upper bass (fig.1). There is also a punishing combination of 4 ohms magnitude and –50 ° electrical phase angle at 70Hz that will suck gobs of current from the amplifier."

http://www.stereophile.com/content/sonus-faber-cremona-elipsa-loudspeaker-measurements#bD5u0G5x4C8Jcr1R.97

Stereophile in the review above used Mark Levinson No.33, Boulder 860 and the Parasound JC1’s these are all bi-polar (bjt) output amps.'

Post written by Georgehifi few years back

OP,

Sonus Faber, Audio Research, and Transparent interconnects are a known synergistic combination. I got there by stumbling upward over fifty years of pursuing the high end. My most consistent preamp was Audio Research.  The recommendation of a Ref 80 amp is good… I currently have REF 160m mono blocks and a Reference 160m… driving my Sonus Faber Amati Traditional in triode mode… so 70 wpc. I occasionally switch out of the triode mode to double the wattage… while the difference in sound is not obvious, I switch back in a couple minutes. 
 

But order of business is their preamps. The ARC preamps are world class, highly detailed, but warm and organic… not tubie, but with great midrange bloom. The amazing thing is the musicality with preservation of details and soundstage. I really recommend the Reference series 5 and higher. I owned a Ref 5SE for many years. I would look on line for used ARC preamps.

www.arcdb.ws

Is a virtually complete database/catalog of all the Audio Research products.

It is not a product of the company, but an ARC fan who obviously is crazy about products. 

Regards,

barts