Ski Bum

http://www.critesspeakers.com/ Shipping to Italy would be cost prohibitive, but take a look at Bob's site for some ideas. Yeah, I'd pass, that's probably too much. Haggle them down, or pass. Now, if you found an ASL Wave-8 for a quarter of that price, you're in business. (Oh, wait, no remote. Doesn't your proton pre-amp have a remote?) Something will pop up, so keep your eyes open.

Also look at Yamaha's pro amps, seem pretty solid, even have unbalanced rca inputs for us unbalanced users. [:|]

Well, I can't find any English reviews on that particular amp. What you should take away from this are a couple facts. If clean, accurate reproduction is what you're after, you will be hard pressed to do better than what you have. Maybe a Bryston, but even then, if you're not exceeding the amp's limits, you probably couldn't tell it apart from your Proton. Class D amps are maturing, and there are a lot of excellent ones out there now. It looks like the GALACTRON may be such an amp, but that's just a guess. Even with those, you're still not going to surpass what you have now. They are designed for low distortion reproduction, with low output impedance, and to behave (ideally) as voltage source type amps. Just like what you have now. When you start going down the path of tubes, it's their higher output impedances will play differently with your speakers. The effect is essentially like crapping on the signal for positive effect. "Horns love tubes" is kind of trite, but it's true. Such combos will win the Pepsi challenge more often than not. If you are wanting to make things ambiguously "better", don't worry about the Proton; focus on the room and speakers (have you replaced caps in your crossover yet? Experimented with speaker location or room treatments?). Unless you're running out of power (highly doubtful, as your Proton is capable of delivering, what, 500 unclipped watts into a 4 ohm load?), changing amps is a waste of time and money. If you want "different via amps" then explore amps that genuinely, actually do alter the presentation (i.e. tubes), under the knowledge that you are forsaking accuracy (in the strictest sense) for something subjectively different/better to your ears. Go used, to keep the expense of such experimentation within reason.

Wow! Those are cool! Not sure about the low horn location. They need to be sutting on top of some MWMs.

I agree with the others who suggest finding a way to have both. Forte's are just so versatile. They can be used in smaller rooms where 'Scalas would never fit. They still have a huge dollop of Heritage sound and can fill big rooms. And they have bass!

I did comparethe Pass to my SETs as well. As you would expect, they had a somewhat more technicolor presentation with all their peculiarities, less power, and less solid bass. Frankly, and in spite of that, I preferred the SETs. I admit it, I have weird taste, but it just makes sense to go for something really different, rather than extreme expense for maybe some slight difference. That's probably the reason why pp tubes never appealed that much to me, too expensive and not different enough from good old SS power.

If it does, they seem to have dealt with it very well. Here are some third party measurements of that amp, and they look pretty good. THD+N is <0.03 even at low (sub 1 watt) output. That should be inaudible. http://www.soundstagemagazine.com/measurements/nad_c372/ I have a C372, the integrated version of yours. It's a great amp, but kind of vanilla, if that makes sense. I think I like my older NAD even more, but that feeling probably reflects some of my own nostalgic tendencies more than real performance. The older one doesn't sound different in a frequency balance sense but somehow conveys an unusual tension, kind of like riding an ornery horse, which makes it more exciting. Maybe that's because it is several decades old and really could blow up at any moment! [] But, no, Gary, your C272 is a perfectly good amp, so you need not worry about crossover distortion. When I compared each of them to the XA series Pass Labs amp, I wanted to credit the Pass with the lucid midrange that class A amps supposedly excel at (and which SETs also possess, or at least seem to via their trickery), but honestly I wouldn't have made a large bet on hearing the difference. The NAD does just what it's supposed to, without embellishment. When listening to the Pass, not only was I straining to hear a difference, but forced to conclude that whatever hair-splitting differences that may exist did not scale with the rather drastic price jump, both of which got in the way of the music. I have to give kudos to Cask for the extensive effort of compiling these posts, and apologize for my earlier response. I must have been under the influence of some SET spell at the time to have posted such a knee-jerk reaction. Sorry Cask and fellow Klipsch heads.[:$]

Yeah, SETs suck to a dogmatic engineering mindset. My brain likes ambience, even if it is simply my SETs playing the room response back at me. I auditioned a Pass amp. It was very, very nice. But I had to pass on the Pass. Way too expensive, and I'd rather take a ski trip to Verbier for that kind of dough. The Alps kick ***, if you ski. For the price of that one amp, I could outfit several rooms of the house with used Cornwalls and SET amps.

Research Bottlehead and Decware kits. While there has been some price creep, both offer affordable DIY single ended amps. Of the ones I've heard myself, I would have to say the Bottleheads are a bit more tubey, with slightly more harmonically embellished sound, where the Decware are more on the dry side of the spectrum, good bass extension for tubes, and good if you have solid state sensibilities but want a taste of the tube thing. If you're running your Hereseys sans subs, you should consider a more powerful, push-pull design. Hopefully others will chip in on good DIY kits of this type. Have fun with it! (It's kind of like growing your own veggies, they always taste better when you do it yourself.)

I'm not surprised. Your old Proton is a very capable amp, and like the NADs that others are suggesting, it just happens to be a great combo with Klipsch. But keep your eyes open for good used tube gear, and don't be afraid to give it a try.You'll like it.

Those pix appear to be forte, not forte II. The passive does not appear to be 15". Not sure if it matters much, they're both pretty awesome speakers. FYI, paid $425 for super minty, stock forte II about a year ago. Perhaps some friendly haggling is in order, but if they cabs are as good as advertized, don't let 'em slip by.

Chris is right, active is the way to go, although it does require more gear. It sounds like you're running the woofer full-range, which would account for the less than thrilling results you experienced. You can still passively bi-amp, but you have to send the signal through the low pass filter leg of the crossover, not directly to the woofer. This won't give the full benefits of going fully active, but it should improve things significantly enough to make digging into your crossover worth the effort.

I would second what Erik said. While I have tried a few tube buffer stages, including the Decware mentioned above, none really excited me enough to actually purchase them. Tube amplifiers driving speakers, however, will have the 'tube sound', regardless of what's upstream. In this case, the 'tube sound' is largely a result of how the amp's output trannys and high output impedance interact with your speakers. Putting a tube line stage in the mix won't replicate that.

Pretty nice looking piece (the amp, specifically; I didn't look at the preamp). That being said, I don't think you would hear a difference between it and your old Proton.

It's not about needing them. It's about a copasetic combo, like bacon and eggs. (At least tubes don't harden your arteries!) Absolutely correct. []

Another thing to consider that would cost less than a tube amp would be to upgrade the fortes themselves (crossover and/or driver upgrades). Have you tried that? FWIW, and it could be my imagination, it seemed to me that my fortes played notably better with my proton/NAD after the crossovers were replaced. It would be a shame to invest in an expensive tube amp and not fix/update old parts that likely need replacing anyway. I would strongly suggest keeping your Proton amp even if you get a tube amp. You never know when you'll crave ss power, or when it may come in handy down the road. When I replaced the crossovers in my fortes, I split out the horns and woofs in order to bi-amp, tubes up top and ss down low. Tweaky, yeah, but it sounds great, and is extremely versatile.

You can use your Proton pre-amp, assuming it has remote control. Then all you would need is a power amp, or a pair of monoblocks. There is more to consider, for example pp vs single ended. PP tube amps are more powerful, and sound more like ss amps, where single ended amps don't really amplify very well, but do some other pretty interesting things (they're more like processors / holographic projectors). It will take a while to figure out what is worth considering, so take your time and ask around. I'm partial to single ended myself, and own a couple Decware amps that while modestly powered, are practically psychedelic in the presentation they give. In the classifieds here on this forum, a pair of them went for $300. Another recent deal was for a pair of Wellborne 2a3 monoblocks for $700. Craig (forum member NOSvalves) often has refurbed vintage amps on his site for reasonable prices. Check with him first if the more power/less single ended wierdness sounds more like your cup of tea. Regarding the Cayin amps, I'm partial to boutique domestic makes over chinese stuff, fighting the recession at home, one impulsive audiophool purchase at a time!

I use an old Proton made amp (NAD 2100) with my forte II, and like it as much as anything else (aside from tubes, that is, and thats a whole other ball of wax). Is yours malfunctioning in some way?

[Y][Y]

You won't really hear a difference between the Emo and the Parasound. New forum poster Jinjuku is right (welcome to the forum!). I would go so far as to say that strictly in the value department, and even compared to some of the pro-sumer amps, Emo amps are tough to beat. Going for more has more to do with 'luxury' considerations (matching component brands/aesthetics, longer warranty periods, etc.), but that has nothing to do with sonic performance. And that's not a dis of Parasound, their amps seem pretty well engineered to me. Maybe they pay their workers more than Emo. Then again, for our Klipsch we're typically only using a watt or two. I believe some Parasound amps run class A for the first several watts, so with Klipsch they may be running in class A for everything we ask of them. I often wonder if there is a perceptable difference in such a case. It would be interesting to see distortion figures in the sub 1 watt range for both. If there's any crossover distortion hidden in there, that's where it will be most apparent and just happens to be where we spend most of the time with our Klipsch speakers.

Mike (and Moray for that matter), just an fyi. If you replace the old phenolic midrange diaphragms with new Klipsch Ti units, the crossover will likely need further modification (in addition to simply replacing caps). I'm not certain if this is the case with KLF 30s, but it is the case with some of the Heritage models, e.g. replacing a K-61 with a K-53-Ti in a chorus or forte; the phenolics roll off pretty steep above 6kHz, with no high pass filter from the crossover, simply relying on the natural acoustic roll off of the driver; the ti mid's high end response is much more extended, so the crossover needs to implement at 6khz low pass for the midrange. Just something to consider if you end up going this route. Bob's ti tweet diaphragms don't require any crossover mods, and they do indeed make for smoother sounding response. Big thumbs up for his ti tweets, and they're inexpensive. (Gotta love mods that don't cost a bunch but actually improve things.) Mike, good luck on your search.

Not at all against the grain, probably more with the grain if anything, it's us SET guys who are the weirdos. Brystons are superb. It's good to have both options. Sometimes the whiskey is better appreciated striaght up, yet there are times when a Manhatten just tastes so good, even if it is a foofy drink.

I'm not an engineer, but perhaps someone who is will chip in with the nuts and bolts of it. StephenM pretty much nailed it in general terms. An amp with higher gain will take whatever it's fed and raise it higher than an amp with lower gain, like a more powerful zoom lens on a camera. Klipsch speakers already take you closer to the music with their dynamic range and sensitivity, so high gain is not necessarily required. In the case of Emo amps, it's a significant amount of difference and should be considered when pairing with Klipsch. If there is no misbehavior upstream, e.g. an output stage somewhere between the source and amps that is clipping, then the results can be very good indeed, as attested to upthread. Emo amps certainly have no issues driving the weird load of Klipsch, but you better feed 'em right. [edit: that last comment is misleading, as 'crap in/crap out' applies more generally to audio. Regarding gain specifically, two amps with the same gain structure, level matched, assuming similar circuit topologies, should be indistinguishable; you don't lose any detail or resolution with lower gain, you just get less gain. I could be completely wrong here, but with a level matching gain control, you're not changing the gain of the amp per se, but it's input sensitivity; the Emo XPA-2 gives full rated power, full bandwidth, and within distortion limits at 1.1v input. If you reduce it's input sensitivity so that it takes 2v to come to full power, you haven't changed the gain, but you have increased the usable range of your volume control (or achieved whatever other practical goal your after). I use input level adjustments for a bi-amping situation where I have to match amps with quite different input sensitivities, which is a rather narrow situation.]

Yeah, Russ, I don't mean to be disagreeable, but I think you're off. Emo's are anything but "lean". Maybe "Mean" or "Clean". They laugh at impedance dips, and seemingly loaf along with ease on just about everything. They do, however, have voltage gain of 32db. That's higher than most amps I've seen. I checked one of the NADs I'm using, and it's gain is 29db, and even with that I've got it dialed way back (guesstimating about 19-20db gain) so I can more fully utilize the volume control, to kid proof it, and because more is just not necessary with Klipsch. If the Emos have a trim feature like that, I would use it. Emos can be pretty hot and zippy if you run them FWO.

Emotiva amps are outstanding values. My only concern with them is that they have comparably more gain than most amps. They get so loud so quickly that you don't have much wiggle room on the volume dial when using higher sensitivity speakers like Klipsch. And what they're fed had better be squeaky clean, cause it will all come through in magnified detail. Using Klipsch speakers and high gain amps is like aiming a compound microscope at everything up-stream. That being said, I would choose Emotiva in a heartbeat for less sensitive speakers. Great amps, and affordable.