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Tube amp recommendation

My current amp is dying and therefore I am in the market for a new amp. I got my current amp back in my university daze (solid state, over 10 years old and cheap). Perhaps I should have upgraded years ago, but it served me well and I was happy enough with it (and spent the money on records instead).

I have always been impressed by the sound that tube amps generate and hence believe that my current amp is giving me the push to go finally into the tube world. I have read various items on this website (and a few others) and have a bit of confusion (and hence some questions).

Now pieces of information about me...
1) I like to listen to large assortment of music (old skool reggae, bad electronic music, the occasional rock record, various jazz items, sometimes even hiphop). Often I listen to stuff in what seems like an random order.
2) I am rather lazy on my days off (when I listen to music most of the time).

With these two points I mean I don't really want to change a set of tubes because my music selection is a sometimes bit schizophrenic. I don't want to manually adjust bias settings every Saturday morning (occasionally fair enough).

Therefore, can anyone recommend any tube amps that are in the entry - mid level for me?
dennyc
sbank's avatar
sbank
3,378 posts
 
What speakers will you be driving with the amp?
raquel
841 posts
 
I'd say "provide a budget", but I'll just take the liberty of suggesting a used Sonic Frontiers Power 2 if you can afford it ($1,500-$2,000). It holds bias really well, can drive most speakers and features very high build quality, especially for the money. If you can't afford one, a used Sonic Frontiers Power 1 can be had for $800-$1,000. At 50 watts/channel, a Power 1 won't drive 86 db. efficient speakers to loud volume in big rooms, but it will do fine with most 88 db+ efficient speakers in average rooms and has all the qualities of its "bigger brothers". These amps use 6550 tubes, which are fairly cheap to replace ($80/pair) and you'll get a couple of thousand hours out of the tubes anyway.

A word to the wise - you need to be very, very careful in buying a tube amp, as the vast majority of them cannot control the woofers of typical speakers. Only very expensive tube amps (which are very expensive because they use high quality output transformers and beefy power supplies) can get it done. "Entry" or "mid-level" tube amps are almost always very compromised designs and you are better off going with solid-state if you are on a budget - at that price point, it is extremely difficult to buy a decent tube amp, while there are a number of good sounding solid-state amps available which will offer better overall sound.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,760 posts
 
FWIW if the amp is good, its good with rock, hip hop, electronic, classical- whatever.

Contrary to opinion above, the size of the woofer and the ability for the amp to control it really is a red herring. A small amp controls a big woofer just fine. But usually a small amp has less power- you're going to cause it to clip sooner. Some speakers are designed for the amp to have **lots** of loop negative feedback (IOW: transistor) and tube circuits, owing to increased linearity of tubes, often run less feedback, and in many cases, none at all.

This is a difference of design consideration and is not a matter of 'control'. See

http://www.atma-sphere.com/papers/paradigm_paper2.html

for more information.

If you want to get the most out of a tube amplifier, your tube amplifier investment dollar will be best served by a speaker that is 8 ohms or more. This is actually true of transistors as well, as long as your goal is sound quality and not raw sound pressure.
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