2. amps-preamps
  3. 1395177588

seeking compatible amp/ CJ pv10, Vienna Acoustic

Hi Everyone,

Need helping weeding through the under $3000 power amp/integrated amp used market. Seeking suggestions regarding proven winners, especially regarding quality-price ratio. Real budgetary constraints.

Am having a hard time with all the options for a USED integrated or power amp to go with my Conrad Johnson PV10 preamp (currently being upgraded by Bill Thalmann) and Vienna Acoustic Mozart Grands speakers. Also using Rel T3 "sub-bass system." Will probably switch in a used Rega Apollo when I switch out the Linn Classik.

Currently playing two-channel music only in man-cave library. Seeking suggestions for highly MUSICAL amp for dad's music room, not for blasting through whole house or being at the cutting-edge of audio sound or architecture. Playing vinyl (jazz, rock, hiphop) through Rega p3-24. Currently using nice-sounding Linn Klassik integrated amp (with cd player) but simply need more power (amp goes to "rest" when volume goes too high). The Mozart Grand speakers don't want to be be-amped. But how power-hungry are they, really (4 ohms, 90 dB rating)?

Here are some of the non-obscure used things I've been tracking lately:
Primaluna Prologue 7 (and Prologue 1 or 2) --tubes
Conrad Johnson MF2200, 2500, 2250 --solid state
Conrad Johnson MV 60 --tubes
Rega Elicit, Exon monoblocks --SS
Cambridge Audio 840W --SS (had a CA 650avr that stopped working after 2 yrs)
Linn LK 180 and other better SS power or integrated amps
Rogue Audio Cronus Magnum, and other models (only if under $3000)

The above items ranged at USED prices from $1000 (or less, with some Linn and Rega items) to $3000 and over (some Rogue, and CJ).

These are very well-known brands but no audio salon in southeast Detroit has any used models of them to audition and possibly buy.

It's been recommended to me that I might need SS in order to offset the warmth and mid-range focus of PV10 amp and the "dark" coloring of the Mozart Grands (known for slight roll-off in high treble range). But I don't know how much tube current it would take to make the Mozart Grands sing.

Basically I'm a teacher, not an orthodontist or businessman. Lots of freedom; not so much cash. So I need to go used. And I need to go smart. I listen mostly to acoustic jazz on cd or vinyl and some rock, hiphop, and soul that need higher volume. I prefer instruments made of wood (piano, drums, bass, clarinet) and seek to focus music reproduction on mid-range magic and dynamic range and quiet noise floor over precise and deep bass or sparkling high trebles or analytical precision.

The term "polite" is not a deal-killer in my house. I think psychoanalytic terms help here: A polite, agreeable but not dangerously censorious superego matched to a self-managing and competent ego and linked to a growling, voracious id might sound just about right when I look in the acoustic mirror.

Thanks for suggestions based on listening experience and study.
paanders
paanders OP
43 posts
 
I am the OP? Just bought a used conrad Johnson premier eleven here on the 'gon. Seemed a decent price at $1650. Got tired of waiting for a cj mf2500a and figured for near the same price I could get 70 watts of tube power from a classic piece.

Now realizing that this might end up as a warm tube system for moderate volume listening to small group acoustic jazz rather than a yank me crank me system for also playing air guitar alongside jimmy page and bonzo bonham at stadium volume... I'm okay with that possibility.
jmowbray
42 posts
 
Paanders: How's that CJ tube amp working out for you?
paanders OP
43 posts
 
Thanks for asking.

As for the initial brute matter of needing more "juice" to push the speakers and make them sing, I can safely say that the 70 watt CJ tube power amp goes further than the 75 SS Linn amp. So that's a big dumb thumbs-up.

As for the matter of sound quality and increased musical experience, this is harder to answer. Definitely not a step down. But I do not have golden ears for hi-fi gear and am, I suppose, a slow-moving gestalt-listener rather than a quick-witted precision-listener. And going back a/b between amps is not my idea of fun for a Friday evening after the kids are in bed. And subjective bias is awful mighty when one splurges on a big heavy new piece of classic kit. And my better phono preamp is in the shop, so I'm making do with a Rega Fono.

That said, I think there was a new kind of presence to the music. To re-baptize the Premier 11a, I played Van Morrison Moondance (recent audiophile LP remastering from Mofi, I think) and first-pressing On the Beach by Neil Young. The sound reminded me (or the thought of the sound reminded me) of what I can hear from my tube amps for electric guitar and always missed from SS guitar amps. An ultra-dynamic snap and thwack utterly missing from the smooth Linn SS amp. That snap changed the timbral colorings of the snare drum, the hard-strummed guitar, and other instruments. And the music hovered before me in a new way. Or perhaps that's the hallucinatory power of subjective bias....
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