TUBE....Starting with Power or Preamp ?

hi supakit,

while either way can work, at yer budget, i'd suggest going w/the tubed preamp. imo, ewe really have to spend big bucks on a tubed amp to get it *all* - the joy of toobs, w/o giving up what solid-state amps do so well. i don't tink this is the case w/pre's - in fact i tink the opposite is true - i tink ya gotta spend big bucks on a solid-state pre to get it *all* - the goodness of solid-state w/o giving up the joy of what toobs do so well! :>)

i *highly* recommend a melos sha gold reference or sha-maestro (their last iteration of this pre). it's in yer price-range, & it's a great-sounding pre - wonderful toob sound that gives up *nothing* to solid-state pre's. in my toob-pre search, i considered the audible illusions, & actually owned a magnum-version of the rogue 99, and the cary slp98 before ending up w/the melos music-director (the top-model melos). i ended-up trying the melos because of the sha-gold i'd heard a few years back. in my search, even a couple dealers that carried the audible illusions, rogue & cary, said the melos was better if i could find one...

good luck, doug s.

Start with tube preamp! Many tube power amps don't perform best with SS preamps due to impedance matching. Try EAR 834L or Joule Electra LA-100MKII ( $1050 in audiogon now ). For less money and good result, try counterpoint 5.1 or foreplay ( visit audio asylum bottlehead forum ) and tweak the unit yourself. After you get the preamp get some NOS tubes for the unit.

I'm having difficulty with this, but thought I should add my comments anyway. The problem I see is that the EAD theater master is being used as a D/A and a pre-amp. It may also be used as a surround processor as well--I don't know if this is the case, but I gather that it is. To add a tube pre-amp is to add another device in the signal processing chain. This, at times, can be beneficial. For example, if you were using a turntable and didn't want your analog converted into digital (EAD converts everything to digital). You could also make the argument that EAD volume is in the digital domain and therefore cutting off bits of information. By using the EAD tape outs to the pre-amp you would preserve the digital data. And another concern is that if you are using the EAD as a surround processor, you would need a tube pre-amp with a bipass circuit for theater use. (It's true you could just have a calibrated point on the volume for the pre-amp, but that's not very convenient). There are not many tube pre-amps(none that I am aware of) that have this feature. I have read somewhere (might have been on audiogon) about a modification to a tube pre-amp to do just this. At any rate these things should be taken into consideration. So, if you don't change the pre-amp, what to do with the amp. Well, Sedond was right, it takes a lot of money to get a really good tube amp, particularly at power levels that you are used to. I don't know if you need all that power, but if you do, I don't think you will find something you will be happy with in the $500-800 range. So, my 2 cents is to take into consideration the caveats of a tube pre-amp with your system. If those are not a concern to you--that's the way to go--I also agree with Sedond's recommendation of a pre-amp. If not, wait until your budget allows you to buy more tube amp.

Supakit, adding to the above, I suggest you AUDITION a reasonably priced tube (good recommendations above, IMO) on yr Mac. You like jazz, percussion, etc, if I read correctly, you will appreciate transient attack. So, go for a tube pre w/ good power supply, and fast. You may want to try a tube that matches *reasonably* with your Mac -- keep in mind that you may wish to chage yr amp in the near future, as diver suggests. In my (limited) experience, doug's suggested melos offer superb sound. Again, IMO go for reasonable sound w/ the Mac: you may be keeping yr new pre and looking for a new power soon enough.
Good luck!

supakit, abstract 7 is rite *and* wrong: he's rite in that if ya use the ead for a home-theatre set-up, ewe may want a pre w/a processor loop that will default to the ead's controls when switched to this loop. this allows *all* the speakers - even the two main audio speakers connected only thru the main preamp - to be controlled by the processor's wolume controls. he's wrong about there not being many toobed pre's that do this - arc, bat, sonic frontiers, & vtl are toob pre's that come to mind, that have this feature. i'm sure there are more. if ya get a pre w/o this feature, the only disawantage for home-theatre use is ya gotta use a standard tape-loop for the processor, which means having to adjust both units' wolume controls. having remote wolume controls for the pre & the processor make this only a minor inconwenience, tho, imo. but i'm not into home-theatre, so perhaps it's more of a problem then i assume... ;~) the melos, btw, while not having a default processor loop, *does* have remote wolume/balance controls...

doug s.