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Help What Say You - Amp choices

I have been pulling my hair out the last few weeks listening to amps at different stores. My final three choices are the Rogue Audio M150, McIntosh MC352 (used from a friend) and the McCormack DNA-225. All are well built. No problem there. All presented a great warm sound. My dilemma is that I keep hearing about how tubes don't have the same weight, authority or control of bass as solid state. And I can't honestly say that I heard a difference going from stereo to monoblocks. Granted, I can't hear them all at the same time due to different audio stores, but I don't feel like the Rogues were lacking in the bass area, yet neither the McCormack or the McIntosh seemed overwhelmingly powerful in comparison to the Rogue. Any help, suggestions, medication (LOL) you can recommend is greatly appreciated.
hawk28
undertow
1,033 posts
 
Tubes have Zero issue with bass, and actually in my experience Deeper, Fuller, and more impactfull bass in many cases as long as everything else impedance wise and speaker efficiency wise are taken into consideration with much care.
jamnesta
155 posts
 
Some prefer tube bass, myself included. To me the result was a richer tonal balance and this was within the same manufacturer's products; SS -v- tubes. Tubes do demand more involvement from the owner.....I like that too ;-)
pubul57
3,712 posts
 
Undertow is 100% correct, but you need some guidance to choose tube-friendly speakers. Generally speakers with a very smooth impedance curve, and if it nominally 8 ohms rather than 4 ohms, all the better. A tube amp with the wrong speaker can result in less than ideal bass - tubes don't handle poorly engineered speakers with wild swings in impedance very well. What speakers do you have or are you considering. Tube bass is all the things Undertow mentions, it breathes and blossoms into the room in a very 3D manner; I think sometimes the word "bloom" is used to describe it; it sounds very natural.
musicslug
430 posts
 
I would add that if no single set-up (and we're talking systems here, since everything besides the amps is NOT equal, right?) jumps out at you as 'the one', that could mean a few things:
1. you're just not all that picky and could be happy with any of these amps (nothing wrong with that!)
2. you should keep looking until something blows you away (i.e. you're not done with your search yet)
3. you haven't listened 'properly', as in all the above posts' suggestions about bringing your own favorites. when I audition things, I bring music I've heard 100+ times: as soon as it starts, I immediately can hear the differences, and if it doesn't impress me as a definite improvement (i.e. I have to really think hard about it...) then it's not 'it'
tiger
313 posts
 
Get the dealer to give you the unit as a loaner, with your giving him security. Until you put it in your 'chain', it is a chap shoot. SS should rule below 100Hz, otherwise it is tubes.
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