Best Balanced Tube Amp To Pair With Meridian G02?

Atmasphere/Ralph, that is a very interesting comment. I have not heard that before but would be anxious to hear more. Of course, I would love to own one of your amps, but even used, they are outside of my budget :-( You indicate that such a mod is relatively inexpensive - can you elaborate more on what "inexpensive" is? Or is this cost very dependent on the amp? Thanks and I will check back in with this thread for more info.

With just about any amplifier it would be under $250.00.

With tube amplifiers, normally the grid of the input tube is driven by the input signal. Since we want to do balanced (because it sounds better), we will have an inverted signal to work with as well. That is applied to the cathode of the same tube through a coupling capacitor (which might also be the cathode bypass cap of the amp; lacking that, then one is added as the coupling cap).

For transistor amps, the extra input is mixed with the feedback signal, which is usually applied to the differential input of the amplifier.

Both techniques work quite well, and essentially in the same way. It requires the connector, and the connections into the circuitry, perhaps a coupling cap or resistor. Otherwise you can see that this is an inexpensive mod; in either case **the amplifier is accepting the balanced input in the differential domain** even if the amp is otherwise single-ended.

And FWIW, I disagree with Rrog, its **much** easier to find a neutral-sounding tube preamp than solid state! However I find that listener bias does apply; I regard a preamp with a deep and wide soundstage to be more neutral than one that lacks such a thing, similarly I regard a preamp without brightness as more neutral than one that is bright.

I am a very great admirer of your wonderful products, and my first choice was to go with a used pair of M-60's, or even an S-30, my budget simply would not also support one of your preamps.

I then originally purcased the Meridian, since it was balanced, with that in mind, and buying a used Atmasphere power amp. However, I have since been told that your amplifiers only perform optimally when linked with one of the preamps of your own design, unfortunately.

My Subject title was somehow lost when I posted my last reply. Sorry.

However, I have since been told that your amplifiers only perform optimally when linked with one of the preamps of your own design, unfortunately.

Most of the reviews you might have seen on our amps have been done for the most part with single-ended preamps. The amps don't care if the preamp is single-ended or balanced, however its a fact that balanced cables, if driven properly, will sound better for their own reasons. So by default the amps will sound better when driven by a balanced source and our preamps *are* balanced, but the amps are designed to work with **any** preamp.