Devore O/96 with high powered amplifiers


Just picked up a used pair of Devore O/96 and am awaiting delivery. Still have a pair of McIntosh MC501s (500W) and a pair of Quicksilver V4s (170W) that I used with my previous speakers.

Before I sell the amplifiers for something with less power, I plan to at least try them with the O/96s.

What can I expect to hear? What issues might I encounter?

 

 

allison2

To me....you may be on the cusp of having the Best of all worlds , keep a high powered SS amp and also purchase a low watt Tube amp, perhaps a pair of mono 300B's.       Both will have different sound signatures and give you more options!  My suggestion would be to sell the powerful Quicksilver's for a lower wattage option.

It is no surprise that I'm interested in exploring SET tube amplifiers.  It will be difficult to justify keeping all these amplifiers around.

I have a pair of O96s and originally paired them with Pass labs XA 60.8 mono blocks but sold those and got an Audio Note OTO Silver signature. I will say the sound was much better with the tube amp. The pass lab amps seemed a little constrained, not as deep or full in the bass and the sound stage wasn’t as big. Others might be able to give more insight into this, but I think some of it could be damping factor? Maybe it’s just the way tubes sound with these Speakers as opposed to transistor amps. However, I recently replaced the OTO with the Leben CS 300xs and for my system, it definitely sounds better than the OTO despite the almost 3x price difference.  The Leben will be here for a long time. 

I appreciate the detailed description and experience with various amps.  I'm surprised to hear that Pass XA60.8 didn't impress.  Leben seems an interesting choice too.