Need thoughts on Canary & Cary

how big is your room? the 70/70 could be sufficient depending on your listening tastes and room size. it can handle difficult loads easily. kevin tests these amps w/ thiel speakers, notorious difficult loads.

Well the room is 14x20x8.5 or so. and the now plan is to improve on what is on hand as much as possible.

so the current decision is to get more eff speakers, and a solid choice in amp which will not cost terribly to keep up. Talking with VAC and my tube source, retubing the VAC is markedly pricey so far as I am concerned. 1625, and 1100, respectively. it will need it not right off, but shortly. that's a real killer adding in the price of the amp itself. it also means a less than good running amp and old speakers for a good while going that way.

Given other pressing matters, I struck a deal on some higher eff speakers, and what i believe is a solid tube amp choice, which will also soon need retubing... but for only $450 - $500.

Though it's not my first choice I think overall, it's best I make this move, given current circumstances. So it winds up being a vk60, and Silverline Sonattas.

I can after having in house the higher eff Sonattas, try other tube amps if the 60 is not my fix. I wasn't able to previously without major worries in matching amp & speakers. So that part makes sense. retubing the vk60 seems also a good idea as it is indeed a good tube amp, and a classic... almost.

Though a departure from my original intent, and my first choice, it's not the end of the road for tube amps or speakers for sure. For now however, it's at least, a goodly step in the right direction ampwise, and a sure step up speaker wise. in all, I'd think, I'm ahead this way, and I'm not going into hock to do it.

Results? we'll see pretty soon.

Any other thoughts?

sounds like a plan. i'll be interested in hearing your thoughts on the vk-60. as far as retubing the VAC, i always liked the JJ 300b better than any other and you can get them for about $170 a pair from eurotubes.com.

Dennis

Whoa! My info on pricing 300b's is sure higher than that, like double.... or more. A lot more. I did do some research too with creditable tube vendors for a good while.

Those sound great huh? Lovely. the retubing price wasn't the only thing that made me move away from the VAC I was looking at... but it was significant among the reasons.

I will get back with my results.

Sure do thank you for the help.

yeh, if you buy the tubes thru vac, you'll pay a ton. check out the prices here, towards the bottom of the page:
http://eurotubes.com/euro-price.htm

yes, the vac sounds special. i always regretted selling mine, i will likely buy one again one day.