Amp recommendation for Klipsch Heresy


A friend of mine just purchased some circa 1980 heresy's. I am trying to help him build out the rest of his system. What do you guys recommend for an amplifier? He would prefer something of 70's to 80's manufacture and we have a budget of around $400 dollars. I have never listened to any vintage klipsch. Do they do better with tubes or solid state? With his budget, I would assume tubes are out. Do any of you own heresy's? What are you using to drive them? Thanks for any thoughts or suggestions.

Andy
andyprice44
Something different for you to consider- not a 70's or 80's amp, but I would recommend a rebuilt Baldwin amp by Will Vincent. He goes by member name "Autospec" here on the Gon. I haven't seen any for sale lately by Will himself, but they come up from time to time in the classifieds. There's one for sale right now over on AA, but it's a "Super Baldwin" and he's asking $800.00. I know you can get a standard one for around your price range. Had one driving my Klipschorns for a while and they were a match made in heaven. That Baldwin amp held its own up against some very expensive amps I had.
tubes may be noisy with sensitive speakers. vintage mcintosh tube amps are great when properly serviced and restored so is hh scott ones. if you can do restoration job yourself you'll save $$$ otherwise you need to be in $800 range.
I have a pair of the original Heresys in my workshop.
Drive them with a Knight KN-928 (Tube integrated) and play music on a Denon DCD-1560

Every time I hook up my iPhone to that set up I just wonder whether the designers of those components ever imagined something like that.
Having used the older Heresy quite a lot, I can also vouch for the use of tubes. The speaker will become oppressive with transistors and the tubes seemed to play the bass better. I used a modified Dyna St-70 on them and was never able to run it out of gas. I never had troubles with noise.