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Tube Amp


ChipByrd

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Hi,

I recently upgraded my Chorus speaks with the Crites tweeters and crossovers. They sound sweet. I am running them through a Pioneer SX-1050. I also have a pair of RF-82ii that I am running through a Cambridge Audio 840a. I would like to try a tube amp. I have heard some on this site say they partner great with Klipsch and others say it doesn't make much of a difference. My budget is rather low so I will have to go used. I don't know where to begin. Can I find a good used tube amp in the $600 - 800 range? If so, what kinds would you suggest? Thanks for the help.

Chip

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It would be helpful if you describe your listening room (size, listening position relative to the speakers, furniture, carpets, etc.), type of music you listen to, and how loudly you listen. All of this will help determine how much power you will need which will, of course, determine the price range for satisfying that requirement.

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I have an excellent tube amp in the garage sale section . I sent you the link to the listing. My amp is dead quiet, has plenty of power, excellent dynamic range, super detail and imaging. It's current production so you don't have to worry about hum/buzz and restoration work needed on a lot of old vintage gear. There are a couple other nice tube amps by other forum members as well, so take a visit to the garage sale section.

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I am in the process of developing a listening room. It is 11.5' x 18'. Apart from my audio gear, I plan on one extremely comfortable chair. I am currently figuring out what kind of acoustic gear is necessary. Musically, I am a mixed bag: from Clapton to Chopin. I definitely lean toward high volume. Hope this helps. Thanks for any advice.

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I think you'll be disappointed. Your Cambridge is an excellent amp. I run the same on my audio-only system along with a rebuilt Scott LK48 tube amp, HK990 cd player, turntable and Thiel loudspeakers. Frankly, the only difference I can hear between the two amps is the slight hiss from the tube amp (which is typical of tube amps) and the inability of the tube amp to drive the speakers to the same bass levels as the Cambridge. Not that I don't like the Scott, but after listening to many different tube amps over the past few years (like Audio Research, McIntosh, Rogue), I just can't hear any real difference between good quality SS equipment and tube equipment. In your budget range, I think you're better off spending some money eslewhere.

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Thanks Droid,

One of my concern is budget. I realize the amount I listed isn't very much and I still need to spend some money on my listening are. My wife has been very tolerant thus far, but a big expenditre on a new tube amp might put her over the edge. When I taled to Mr. Crites he said he favors SS. I am sure I wll hear other opinions, which is what I want.

BTW, what is WAF? It sounds like a designation for wife???

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Can't comment on tube vs solid state yet. I have a Scott 299-C that's going to Craig at NOSValves for restoration soon. If you can find something like the 299 series for a good deal (under $300) and have it restored for $300-400, you'll be close to a reasonable budget. You can then listen for yourself and see what all the talk is about.

Some like all tubes and some like tubes in a certain place along the signal path. One forum member I met prefers a SS preamp with a tube amp - sounds the best to him. I look forward to finding where my tastes are. Maybe I'll be like Droid where my ears can't tell the difference. If that's the case I can sell this Scott 299-C for (close to) the money I have invested.

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I think you'll be disappointed. Your Cambridge is an excellent amp. I run the same on my audio-only system along with a rebuilt Scott LK48 tube amp, HK990 cd player, turntable and Thiel loudspeakers. Frankly, the only difference I can hear between the two amps is the slight hiss from the tube amp (which is typical of tube amps) and the inability of the tube amp to drive the speakers to the same bass levels as the Cambridge. Not that I don't like the Scott, but after listening to many different tube amps over the past few years (like Audio Research, McIntosh, Rogue), I just can't hear any real difference between good quality SS equipment and tube equipment. In your budget range, I think you're better off spending some money eslewhere.


I agree with the noise and performance characterization of some old vintage tube equipment. But almost all current production and late production tube amps I have owned are dead quiet, can drive to full dynamic's speaker systems as good or better than SS gear. Current production and late production have power supply components comparable to SS gear. Supply filters for current production and late production that range between 1500uf and 3500uf is not uncommon compared to the small filters used in vintage gear ranging from 30 to 80uf.




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I think you'll be disappointed. Your Cambridge is an excellent amp. I run the same on my audio-only system along with a rebuilt Scott LK48 tube amp, HK990 cd player, turntable and Thiel loudspeakers. Frankly, the only difference I can hear between the two amps is the slight hiss from the tube amp (which is typical of tube amps) and the inability of the tube amp to drive the speakers to the same bass levels as the Cambridge. Not that I don't like the Scott, but after listening to many different tube amps over the past few years (like Audio Research, McIntosh, Rogue), I just can't hear any real difference between good quality SS equipment and tube equipment. In your budget range, I think you're better off spending some money eslewhere.

I agree with the noise and performance characterization of some old vintage tube equipment. But almost all current production and late production tube amps I have owned are dead quiet, can drive to full dynamic's speaker systems as good or better than SS gear. Current production and late production have power supply components comparable to SS gear. Supply filters for current production and late production that range between 1500uf and 3500uf is not uncommon compared to the small filters used in vintage gear ranging from 30 to 80uf.

BS...... Vintage tube amps that leave my shop have just about zero noise. Unless you're the anal retentive type and count using a full range speaker as a headphone.

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I am going to repost my comment from a similar thread in the Garage Sale section:

I absolutely love my tube amp from Glow Audio. They can be found at http://www.glow-audio.com/home.html. Single ended triode (SET), all point-to-point wired. Very low noise. I think they run for about $800 these days. 5 watts per channel doesn't sound like a lot, but with efficient Klipsch speakers, that little box rocks the house. I run it with RB-61 II's, and I just pulled the trigger on some RF-7 II's. The RF7's should be loud as all hell.

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Craig beat me to it... the tube amps I have were worked on or built by him and are VERY VERY quiet! No hum or hiss whatsoever. The Scott 299 would be an excellent start and you are in the right price range. Rolling tubes is addictive but you could just put in some 12ax7 Telefunkens and be done with it. That is where I was happiest.

This gets very subjective. Yes, I have heard SS with tighter bass but whatever "looseness" there is in the low end with the Scott is more than made up with all the rest (IMHO). Yes, it gets loud and sounds great all the way there! [:)]

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Thanks Droid, One of my concern is budget. I realize the amount I listed isn't very much and I still need to spend some money on my listening are. My wife has been very tolerant thus far, but a big expenditre on a new tube amp might put her over the edge. When I taled to Mr. Crites he said he favors SS. I am sure I wll hear other opinions, which is what I want. BTW, what is WAF? It sounds like a designation for wife???

I'm trying to think about what you'll gain by getting a tube amp in that price range, and I honestly can't see how you'll do better than Cambridge Audio's top of the line integrated amp.

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I realize that the tube vs SS is a real debate starter. I am trying to figure out how I can best use my paltry resources to get the best sound possible. So here's another question. How many of you two-channel guys have bass traps and other room enhancements? It seems like this provides good bang for the buck and would be helpful in my 11.5' x 18' basement. But most of the info I've read had to do with home studios or home theatre set-ups. Is it as important for two-channel as HT?

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Is it as important for two-channel as HT?

The short answer is absolutely.

You also have to understand that it's the crazies on here, so a lot of us go to the nth degree to make it sound the best it can. I don't happen to be one, but my living room isn't to bright, so I'm pretty happy with just putting on some tunes and enjoying the music.

Bruce

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since you indicated exploring improvements...you might like this site....click on any item

2 4 Build yourself a component rack
3 5 Stuff dacron pillow batting into the ports on your ported speaker to tune the bass response
4 1 Get the Digital Gear away from your tuner
5 Cheap tube damper for input and driver tubes
6 3 Ground your metal rack, reduce noise
7 3 Pluse transformer for Digital
8 Component isolation device
9 1 CD spinner and magnetic field source used in combination with a tape demagnetizer
10 Isolation device
11 Contact cleaner and preservative
12 1 Fill freezer type Ziplock sandwich storage bags with sand and sandwich between two pieces of MDF
16 Fill gallon bags with play sand, place on top of CD players, amplifiers (away from heat-dispersion fins!)
17 1 Granite plate
18 1 These are little metal cones, put them under your speakers and you will have midrange galore, esp, guitars and vocals
19 Coil spring mounting of speaker enclosures
20 2 10 pair telephone wire as speaker cable
22 Improved contact
23 2 2 inch thick poly foam tubing placed around speaker cables
24 Marble slab subwoofer platform
25 Large bubble wrap isolation for CDP
26 Cheap tonearm wrap
28 Item is a clear plastic-like material in the form of a washer. It has a tacky surface
29 Nothing to upgrade? Then upgrade your AC cord to this
30 1 Damping feet for CD players
31 Change the capacitors and resistors in the cross-over in your speakers to better types
32 1 Mount these to your speakers and low frequencies are enhanced.
33 Separate dedicated AC lines for amp and digital components
35 Damping for equipment racks and speaker stands
37 3 Use plumber’s teflon tape on your small input tubes for vibration control
38 Reduce resonance of wood component racks
39 Close doors to listening area
41 Construct Maple sand Box for equipment support
45 Different soundimage in surroundsystems
48 Poor man's seismic sink
49 1 OHP covers
50 1 Black Diamond Racing cones, The Things and The Pits…
55 1 Inexpensive, but effective acoustic panels
58 Putting marble/granite slabs of different thickness underneath the spikes of the amplifier improves soundstaging
59 1 Securing bookshelf speakers with "Blue-tac" on stands
61 Foam mattress pads on your wall
62 2 Wooden boxes filled with #8 lead shot
65 Lift chokes off pc-board
66 1 Use plastic 35mm film containers on power cords, interconnects and speaker cable to cut RFI
67 Use spiral cable wrap to damp resonances of tonearm
68 Use to damp vibrations
70 Remove your grill cloths
71 Clean up your home's AC line
72 1 Remove the damping from reflex speakers and insert a V shaped brace running top to bottom (2"x2" approx.)to break up standing waves and add speed to bass
77 1 Slate under the spikes of the speaker stand
79 Cones
84 The best tube damping rings
86 Rewiring from the terminals to the diaphragm. Taking out the inner screen
87 1 Replacing the 12 volts DC power supply with two car battery
88 Throwing away the OP amps at the output of the dacs. replacing them with tube
90 Phono cable dressing for suspended t.tables
91 Glass panel tweak
92 4 Half racquetballs to dampen components
93 2 My tweak is about equipment damping, instead of buying Shakti Stones or Bright Stars, I put block of marble at the top of each of my component so vibrations are damped and somewhat minimized
94 Outboard power supply
97 Damping vibration in lower priced cd players to improve performance
98 3 Improve your imaging in spite of having a TV between your speakers
100 1 Adding a 3/4" glass panel to the top of the CD player
101 Do-it-yourself RFI detection
103 Separate Digital and analogue Supplies to regulators and run digital (5V) regulators from Nicad Batteries
104 Cones made of Aluminum outercone in which steal inlay is shrinked. space is filled with bitumen-like material
105 10kg Steal block for use with acoustic balance cones
106 Rope platform for audio components
107 1 In addition to painting the CD edges green, painting the CD tray and the inside of the chassis cover would also benefit from the green paint effect
108 Installed two cooling fans in an entertainment unit to reduce heat generated by six components.
109 Outboard Power Supply/ transformer
110 1 The ultimate no-cost speaker stand
113 Connecting two identical conductors in a single path
114 DeoxIt and Pro-Gold are contact cleaners which also improve the conductivity of all the (electrical)contacts in your hifi setup
115 Using Belden coax cable as speaker wire
116 A platform to reduce the vibration of a CD player or source
117 1 Coins on top of speakers do wonders
119 1 Solid core, house hold industry, mains cable as your power cords
120 1 Coins placed under the spikes of speakers or stands
121 Tighten the screws on the units of your speakers from time to time
122 Use shorter runs of speaker cables
123 Eliminating first reflections in listening room
125 Speaker setup
126 Remove build up of static charges on the surface of any cable as well as CD's
127 Tweeter anti-diffraction rings
129 Tracking weight
130 2 in. thick square concrete slabs on top of my subwoofer
131 Small metal cones under front edge of proac tablettes
132 Suspending your speaker wires off the floor
134 Near field monitoring
136 Changing power cord connections to mains
137 2 Erosion of the edge of CD
138 1 MDF sand Box
139 1 Hospital grade power outlets
140 Setting up speakers with string
141 2 Correct Polarity using a Digital Multi Meter
142 MDF Speaker Stand
143 Blue tacky puddy like substance provides great damping and coupling to speakers
147 Speaker cones or spikes DRAMATICALLY increase not only BASS response but soundstage and imaging!
148 Got my speakers "off the ground" and moved the horn tweeter to ear level made a WORLD of difference!
149 Use a sound pressure meter to help place speakers (and integrate a sub-woofer) by balancing all of the frequencies.
151 Switch components from left to right channel.
155 1 Ferrite rings
156 1 Rec-out preamp connection
157 Basic reinforced Aluminum cone
158 Shortcut the unused INPUTS to the preamplifier (No, not OUTPUTS, please, unless you want to make some damage!)
159 Mounting bypass capacitors in your speakers network.
160 Position cd-player and preamp away from power amplifier.
161 Home made power cords. Amazing!
162 Short-out unused inputs of your preamp
163 Replacing rectifiers of power supply. Incredible!
164 1 Marble support table. Wonderful!!
165 Replace your current speaker wire with Home Depot 6 gauge stranded electrical wire.
166 An improvised RoomLens
167 Using 3 natural quart crystal balls inserted into wood base for the equipment support.
168 Use between pre-amp and subwoofer to eliminate bad effects of long interconnects on sound quality
169 1 Using this interconnect between transport and d/a converter
170 A cylindrical open-cell foam piece of tubing used for insulation of water pipes
171 1 A sheet of .125" damping material with a viscoelastic adhesive backing
172 A polymer damping sheet with a concentric circle design on one side-supposed to eliminate internal standing waves
173 Poster hanging putty
174 A static discharge device, similar in effect to Versa Labs' "Zap", which retails for $40.00.
177 Homemade speaker and component support.
178 1 Damp amplifier cooling fins
179 Short the unused inputs on your pre-amp.
180 Upgrade the mains supply
183 Big do-it-yourself ferrite rings for eliminating EFI in power/speaker cables.
184 3 Heavy felt tweeter rings for smoother detailed treble
186 Purchased stanley door stoppers from WallMart and placed under amp and turntable for isolation.
187 3 Amp on-top of cd
189 Quad els on target stands.
190 Equalize audio to match your hearing!
192 1 Use inflated rubber tubes as seismic sink of CD or turntable players.
194 4 Isolating Stones
195 Put a bag of shot on your amp, if possible (don't block air holes) and especially on your CD player.
197 Shelves can be improved upon by a sandwich of plywood and cork.
198 Look in the ads in hi-fi mags and design your own speaker and equipment stands
199 1 Adding new connectors to your amp.
200 Replace all the ceramic capacitors with WIMA red ones (No MKS). or Siemens styroflex
201 Play Densen : DeMAGIC CD
202 Install a special power group only for your audio installation
203 A demp the chassis with MDF blocks 2 inch square
205 Place all cabling off of the floor using styrofoam cups.
209 Speaker/IC line supports...cones/rounds/polys/squares/trap'zds
210 Cones/Trap'zd's/bullet shaped anti-resonant weights for speakers/electronics
211 Compound Bias for tube power amplifiers. Not just fixed OR auto Bias, but both.
212 Vitalizing most tube amps by modernizing the driving-section.
213 1 BI-Amping your system...eliminate the crossover in the speaker
214 Ohm that unused digital output!
215 1 Very cheap, very good sounding homebrew speaker cable
219 2 Elevate your listening position to get your ears at the same level as your tweeters.
220 2 Use an isolation transformer without plugging your equipment into it
223 Foam ring around tweeters.
224 Put eggboxes of commercial damping panels in critical areas to cut reflected energy at listening position.
225 1 Damping(especially metal- and ceramic dome) tweeter's high-freq. Resonance
226 Use a sheet of EAR ISODAMP, about 30 per. and cover the top and bottom of the chassis with it.
227 Some use tennis balls, but for those of us with limited space "squash balls" work better for component isolation.
228 Use nylon bolts instead of spikes on hardwood floors.
229 Terminal and contact cleaner with electro-magnetic properties to enhance electrical connectivity on gold surfaces
230 Vibrapods are great but can't be used with spikes unless you have some kind of cover for them.
231 Economically challenged tube traps
232 Gold connector cleaner and conditioner-sealer
234 Keeps speaker cables from touching the ground.
235 Damping of CD transport mechanism
236 Bitumen damping of CD cabinet
237 Lifting speakercables off the floor
238 1 Bike tube under CD player/amp
239 Back wall resonance deadening.
240 1 Digital equipment in separate a/c zone.
243 Switch cycling
244 2 The Nordost Eco 3 Antistatic Spray prevents static charges to build up on your equipment, your cables and even your records and CD's!
245 Vibration isolation platform.
247 Skipping CD's
248 Speaker setup
253 Air dampening/isolation device
254 An isolation platform placed on top of components to reduce EFI interference and better the effectiveness of isolation platforms.
260 Replace speaker terminals and wires to crossover with some decent (solderable) speaker cable soldered directly to crossover, spades to amp
261 Speaker damping without fibreglass,etc.
262 "Spikes" for speakers, racks, et al
263 Replacing cheap wire with higher quality copper.More punch,and higher definition
264 Positioning spikes for optimum sonics
267 Best Solid Silver loudspeaker cable on Earth
269 3 Biamp and biwire your loudspeakers if possible.
270 Place layers of bubble wrap under component shelves to achieve air based isolation.
271 Perfect sound staging
272 1 Cheap CD Mat
273 Neoprene washer substitute.
274 2 Amazing roller ball isolation device for CD players
275 Component isolation
276 3 If your Television is between your speakers, throw a blanket over it when listening to music.
277 To extend the IC's life and dampen created HF
278 Oak drawer knobs from DIY shop used as equipment feet.
280 Low jitter, high accuracy replacement CD clock module
281 Solder wire ends to prevent fraying + improve connections
282 An isolation platform for your turntable. Probably works well on CD players too.
284 Reduce front baffle loudspeaker diffraction losses
285 1 Put ball bearings in three Vibrapods and place turntable on it.
286 1 Remove stock (hard plastic) feet from your CD player
287 Laser alinging your speakers, perfect alingment!
288 Home made, non-shielded (Not needed and only degrades the sound), low capacitance solid silver interconnects.
290 Flour in ziploc bags rather than sand.
291 Vinyl flooring as great panel damping.
292 Zerostat to render cd's static free.
314 Inexpensive high quality interconnect wire for thoes that make their own interconnects
315 Air Isolation of components!
316 Rollerblocks
317 1 Tennis Balls for Excellent Dampning and Better Air Circulation
318 BassLine, an acoustic enhancement invention for improving sound from bass reflex speakers.
319 4 Three evenly spaced PVC tubes behind speakers to tune them
320 Solid-Tech
322 Place thin piece of mortite strategically on cd transport tray so that it doesn't interfere with the opening and closing function.
323 Resonance damping of bass and midrange steel baskets with car repair "steel plastics"
324 1 Short circuit the digital out from your cd-player when not onnected to a separate d/a converter
326 1 Apply FunTack to caps, ICs and transistors.
328 Speaker/speaker stand isolation platform
329 2 Use pieces of a thick neoprene mousepad to decouple speakers on stands
332 Better alternative to expensive HiFi stands.
333 4 Make your own awesome solid silver interconnects and cables
334 Superior version of MDF (medium density fiberboard).
335 Improved stability, vibration damping, focuses speakers
337 Neat dampeners
338 Stand speakers on a cutout piece of 1-2 cm thick polystyrene, the same size as the base of each speaker.
339 1 Clean all copper contacts like equipment plugs,valve pins,fuses.More current to your system.
340 1 Cd cleaner that really improves the sound quality of budget cd players.
341 1 Stabilize the voltage supply on IC in CD player, DAC, OPAmp etc. to improve leading edge of music pulses.
342 5 Use Brasso polish to make scratchy CD's like new again.
345 Pirelli bi-wire cables, strands not solid-core, as speaker cables.
346 6 Aluminium honeycomb footers.
347 Driver dampening on speaker cabinets.
348 Upgrade caps resistors in speaker crossovers.
351 Clean Your Clock - quick tweak to improve the clock performance in your CD player.
352 1 Vibration control platform.
354 3 AC outlet
355 4 AC plugs
356 Subwoofer tweak
358 3 Video and Audio improvements in Home Theatre System
359 Turntable Tweak
360 Hockey Pucks (as equipment feet)
362 1 Twist your interconnect cables into "twisted pair"
363 Cheap AC line noise filter
364 Component isolation (substutite for graphite blocks)
365 Buckwheat Pillow Vibration Fix
366 Vibration control for components, $15 rollerblocks
367 Wall panels - Effective and cheap
369 3 Silicone resin used inside cabinet for maximum clarity
372 2 Mass Load Device
373 1 The speaker attachment to improve sound
374 Acorn nuts under speaker spikes
376 1 Twin inner tube damping device
377 3 Put ferrite beads on your speaker cables
378 1 Checking AC field around your cables
379 1 Audio Spectrum analysis, home theater room optimizer
382 Anti-Resonance Platform for audio components
383 AC Line Noise
384 CD Base
385 7 Amazing speaker tweak
387 1 Zobel network calculator
388 Inky black contact enhancer liquid
390 1 Focus Rings
391 8 Bass Tune your room
392 1 Reducing "digititis" glare of CD
393 Styrene foam cylinders [as cable separators]
394 Make ground plan for DAC chip, easy way to improove S/N
395 Voltage regulation
396 Cheaper Supplier of Lead/Steel Shot
397 Dampning inside CD player
398 Dampening CD player chassis/housing
399 CD player platform
400 Replacing spikes on stands
401 1 Cheap mains conditioner
402 Stylus replacement shure m75, m91 etc
403 1 Turntable isolation via holographic setup principles
404 Leaving your equipment switched on
405 1 Isolation platform
407 1 Clean up bass response on sub-woofer
408 Contact treatment
410 1 Concrete blocks above AND below the sub!
411 FM performance
428 The Space Harmonizer, a new unique resonant platform
429 Digital to Analog Sound...the Easy Way!!!
431 Speakers setup on carpet
433 Effective, cheap, very affordable and easy to install.
434 1 Tighten the screws on your speakers in the speaker cabinets.
435 Damping Material
438 MDF Shelf Treatment
439 Change your existing basic outlet with a commercial grade outlet
440 MiHorn/Focus Ring Alternatives.
441 AC outlet
442 Anyone use Quietcoat?
443 The wonders of blu-tac on my Rotel rcd-1070 cd player
444 Equipment Isolation
445 Dedicated mains
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