Tube Amp Recommendation

Calvin,

I think you need to decide if you like Tubes or your existing speakers better. Because for $1500 used, you are not going to find a tube amp that can drive those speakers well. Especially when compared to a $1500 SS amp.

With more of a budget, I would suggest the ARC VT100 amp ($2500 or so used). This tube amp could drive the speakers pretty well.

Personally, in that price range, I would look at Monarchy solid state gear. The Monarchy SE100 Deluxes and the SE100 amps are great amps and sound a lot like tubes due to their Mosfet outputs.

or

A step up from Monarchy is Plinius SA100 mk3. This amp can be had used for $2200 (which is a virtual steal). Plinius is a world class amp that can only get better if you get two of them and go MONO.

Anyway, if you like tubes better than your speakers, I would suggest getting new speakers. If you like your speakers more, get a musical solid state amp like the Monarchy or Plinius gear, and I think you will be quite amazed.

This advice and a cup of coffee nets you a cup of coffee.

Peace.

Keith

Plato, Bob, and Keith,

Thanks for the quick response and information. There is no such thing as bad information and I appreciate it all; that's the only way to learn. I will research your recommendations and see if I can't improve things. Also, I was just reading on the Apogee forum page, that some one was using a Crown Micro amp. I know these amps have a pretty noisy fan, but they are suppose to deliver over 500 watts at 8 ohms and drive down to 2 ohms pretty easy. I just wonder about the quality of the sound.

Calvin

$1500 is really cutting off the kind of tube amp you need...around 100 watts per channel. The Sonic Frontiers Power 2 would be a good choice but they're going for around $2000 used, maybe a little less. You might also want to investigate an outboard auto-transformer which is essentially an impedance multiplier to make that difficult load more manageble. You find them here:http://www.condor-connection.org/asog/tweaks/ps/zero/index.html

Good luck...I think tubes and 'stats are the way to go, but you must be careful.

For a tubie sounding amp that can drive your Acoustat44,the Belles 350 is a good canditate. It is 250 watts per and very well built. The price is somewhere around $3500.00. This will also match your quicksilver tube pre-amp.

Calvin,

I have never heard the Crown amp. Personally, I am not all that fond of amps with fans... just one more thing that can break... and if it does, who knows how much damage can be done from overheating (if you are not there when the fan breaks)?

You might want to consider Rogue amps. They are close to your price range used. But I still think it will be difficult to effectively drive those speakers with a tube amp in this price range.

Good Luck!

Keith