Tube Amp Recommendation

If you have a $3000 budget then I cannot recommend VAC strongly enough. You will most likely be looking at used in the $3000 range, but you would be hard pressed to better VAC in almost any price range.

The quality and reliability is unbeatable and Kevin's customer service is second to none in the industry. He happily supports used gear and offers upgrade service on almost all his models. Do some research on VAC - it will speak for itself.

There just so happens to be a pair of PA 90 Mono's on Agon and I also have those amps and can speak from expereince. Those rarely come up for sale and generally don't last long - I bought mine off Agon 3 years ago and have never looked back. I am pushing 87db speakers with NO problems at all. I have the D upgraded versions and they are a 4 chassis design with seperate power supplies. Check out the link below to my virual system and you can see what they look like.

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?vevol&1106443849&view

Very natural mid range and presence on femal vocals, great tonal accuracy, overall fantastic amps. You would need to spend 3x your budget to do better then the PA 90's!

Do yourself a big favor and do some research on VAC before you make a decision!

Hope this helps and good luck!!

Please feel free to e-mail me should you want some additional insight on the PA 90's, I am happy to share my experience with them!

If you are considering ARC VT-100, you should consider SF Power 2. Most agreed SF Power 2 is more neutral and resolving, better bass, and better build.

BAT makes great amp. If possible, stretch your budget and try a SE model. Difference is not subtle vs. the non-SE model.

Aronov LS 960 60W stereo or LS 9100 100W monos could be worth a look for well under $3000 used-around $1300 and $2000 respectively. I dont know them well but am considering them myself.

I second the TAD-60 recommendation. Great unit at a great price. Even better with the TAD-150 Signature preamp. Buy both new for well under your budget.

The comments by Dfhaleycko make a lot of sense. Rather than focus on the power, focus on getting an amp whose sound mates well with your system. A pair of Atmasphere MA60s or the BAT VK60 would be worthy of serious consideration. If at a later time you wanted more dynamic headroom, getting another BAT and converting these to mono amps would make this affordable.

If you are seeking a big 3-dimensional, more lush midrange bloom, great decays, textures, the ARC VT130 literally destroys the VT100 in these areas. I owned this amp several years ago and regret selling this. If you could stretch your budget to $4k, the VT150 mono amps (suped up mono amp version of the VT130) for sale on A'gon is an absolute awesome value. The VT100 was fine but it simply lacked the musical involvement that I enjoyed so much with the VT130. Just stay away from the ARC Classic series amps. They are tonally forward and fatiguing that could give you a very bad first impression of tube amps.

If I were you, I would start another thread to find other audiophiles in your area. Maybe you could hear some tube amps that they might have in their system and then work to borrow some amps to hear in your system. I suspect that many of the older amps listed in this thread will be hard to locate at dealers but you just might be lucky with some local A'gon members.

John