Should I get a new amp?

Great feedback from everyone. Thanks!

There have been a couple of references to Focal's really benefitting from Tube Amps. My problem is that I have never heard a tube amp, and I'm not sure there are any dealers around here that sell them seeing as SS has pretty much taken over the mainstream.

Having said this, I'm now very curious to dig further into the possibility of going the Tube route. This raises a few new questions:

1. I understand that tube amps power is "measured" differently than SS. I know at the end of the day a watt is a watt, but what type of Tube wattage should I target for these 1027be's?

2. What kind of maintenance is required for tube amps? Is "biasing" an involved process? Is it something I can do myself or do I need to send it out to have this done? Are tube replacements easy?

3. I'm a digital guy, not vinyl, with no plans to change in the near future. Does Digital benefit from tubes as much as analog?

4. How important would it be to get a tube-based preamp if I end up going with a tube-based amp? I'm in the market for both so I figure I'd rather find this out now than after I purchase one or the other.

5. The 1027's have the Berrylium tweeter which obviously puts emphasis on the highs. It seems to me that a lot of the SS amps over-exxagerate the highs and I wonder if tubes do a better job of keeping them "less harsh". In essence, is the berrylium tweeter a good match to tube equipment?

As always, thanks for all the great feedback.

-Ben

I have JM Focal Alto Utopia speakers. These are not easy-to-drive speakers as their impedance goes down from 8 ohms to about 3.5 ohms for lower frequencies. This means that the amp needs to do more than double the current at the lower freq., which is more difficult for tube amps.

Since your speakers have similar characteristics, you may need to get a more powerful tube amp too. I would say 100W minimum.

Tube amp maintenance is easy as long as their bias adjustment is easy to access to.

Hope it helps.

New amp. Look into getting a used Cayin 100 tube amp. Great sound and great value.

With that kind of impedance swing, and yet wanting the glory of tubes, I would take a look at the Music Reference RM200 which are great amps with any speaker (assuming 100 watts is enough), but also handle impedance swings easily and are extremely reliable amps, like all Music Reference amps. Otherwise you would have to use some very large tube amps with huge transformers to handle the speakers load. I think you would find the RM200 to have the conveniece of SS, with outstanding tube sound.

Vett93, I would think that the 1027be's would be easy to drive with a 50W or greater power amp since they seem efficient at 91db nominal impedance with low frequency range 38Hz.