I'm going to put in a vote for the VSi75 by ARC. One can probably find it used for under your budget.
Tube amps under $7500
Ready to experiment with combinations never before (or not recently) tried. Step one requires a tube amp. Now looking at Prima Luna EVO 400 which sells for 5K. Any other tube amps I should consider in this price/feature range? Must come in silver with balanced input. For pairing experimentally with various tube and SS preamps. Efficient 4 ohm Legacy speakers (and the room/setup) are the constants.
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@hotei Integrateds have not ben on my radar, partly because failure on one end renders the other useless until repairs are made. But I must say, ARC for both pre and power at a reasonable price is a serious temptation. But then I wonder whether anyone would seriously recommend this unit with Legacys? |
Points well made and I'm not familiar with Legacy speakers. However, I pair a VSi75 with my Dynaudio Heritage Specials and it seems to drive them just fine. And when playing vinyl have a Ref2 SE phono pre use a LOMC Lyra Delos and again seems to sound fine. Of course I have a smaller room and moderate volume levels. |
@chenry Unfortunately, this unit is an integrated whose preamp section is not versatile enough for my needs. Also, its tubes won't deliver the current needed to handle the low impedances thrown up by my Legacy speakers. Seems the only tube amps likely to do this are the big ARC separates and the BATs with their monster output tubes. So I will be looking for a deal on one of those while pondering whether to just cave and go SS after all. Some are reputed to sound rather tube-y, or at least will operate in Class A to 40-50W. |
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