MikeSt Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 My Onkyo a-9555 is acting flaky and I need to start looking for a new amp. The only concern I have is that I turn on my amp in the morning and don't turn it off until late at night. Will that be a problem for a tube amp? Also I'd like tone controls, specifically a midrange control because I always like to make the guitars a little beefier. The KLFs dip a little in the midrange ('rock' speakers). I don't want to spend more than 1k. The Onkyo is considered good bang for the buck, so I'd like to find something similar that has good price/performance ratio and is an improvement over the Onkyo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tube fanatic Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 The only concern I have is that I turn on my amp in the morning and don't turn it off until late at night. Will that be a problem for a tube amp? Do you spend all of those hours listening, or is the amp just idling for much of that time? If the latter, you can use a variac to drop your power line voltage down to around 100 volts during the idling hours. That will reduce the wear on the tubes enormously. When you listen, just go back to 120 volts and you're ready to go. Alternatively, if you're actually listening for all of those hours, you can run the amp at a lower line voltage of say 105-108. The difference in performance probably won't be audible and tube life will be greatly increased as well. How loudly do you listen? Since you will probably need to go with a vintage, hopefully restored, integrated tube amp in order to get the tone controls (finding one with an actual "midrange" control is unlikely) you will be giving up quite a bit of power vs. your Onkyo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeSt Posted December 13, 2012 Author Share Posted December 13, 2012 Thanks. Would it change the sweetness of the tube sound if I used a separate eq? I didn't realize there aren't many tube amps with mid tone knobs. I listen to the amp on and off during the day, and not very loud. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SILVERSPIKE Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 ...running the tube amp output thru an equalizer will color the sound; ditch the equalizer and run straight two-channel off the amp, most tube amps (vintage especially) have treble and bass tone controls for each channel, if u want more mid, u can also upgrade the speakers with some Bob Crites crossovers to give em' more punch.There are a bunch of tube amps available for under $1000; something with 25-40wpc will rock those speakers. I had a pair of satin black KLF-20's with titanium tweets and I could pump them to ear bleed levels with 20 tube watts.[] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeSt Posted December 13, 2012 Author Share Posted December 13, 2012 Thanks. Someone mentioned before to change a capacitor in the crossover to boost the mids, is that what the Crites crossover does? Right now I'm using the eq built in to my audio interface on my computer, but it doesn't help when listening to records because the turntable isn't attached to the computer. The problem I have with doing it in the crossover is I don't know if it will give the result I want. The software eq I'm using right now is parametric and has 3 dots -- a 3.5db gain at 400hz, 2.4db gain at 1.2khz, and a little 1.2db lift at 2.5khz which has made the sound the way I like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 IF you already had a tube pre and amp, but lacked the control you wanted, you cold pick up something like this Aphex 2 channel parametric eq that is on ebay right now. A parametric eq would allow you to pick your cut/boost freq. and pick the bandwidth (how wide a freq. range you boost or cut). This would keep it all in the tube world. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Aphex-109-4-Band-Tube-Parametric-Equalizer-Eq-Vintage-Rack-/170732157639 (opens in new window) You won't find most tube integrated amps with the control that this would give you, and most would have only a bass and treble shelving eq. Bruce Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SILVERSPIKE Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 The Crites crossovers beef up all the caps, voice coil, and wiring. I really think u need to demo a tube amp running clean to your speakers and get an earfull before u pull the trigger. I would never run my tube output thru an equalizer, but that's just me. The other thing is, keeping it turned on all the time, which will wear everything faster and generate alot of heat (u need good ventilation for tubes). Solid state (take a look at Rotel), might be better for your application; that being said, a demo with tubes is worth a thousand words (u gotta tube those speakers to understand), and to fully realize the Klipsch sound, tubes...are the poo, they will smooth the rough edges and eliminate any harshness, and the high sensitivity (100db for klf-20's), requires minimal power input to generate great sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pzannucci Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 The tube amp will sound different than solid state since it typically has a higher output impedance which will change the frequency response. Another thing is that the KLF's impedance drops fairly low for a tube amp to hand in the bass area. If you are looking for good punchy bass along with your music, you may need to stay with solidstate on the woofers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOSValves Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 30 to 40 watts and 4 ohm taps a tube amp will do just fine with the KLF line of speakers. Heck if the room is not too large I bet 20 watts would work just fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 30 to 40 watts and 4 ohm taps a tube amp will do just fine with the KLF line of speakers. Heck if the room is not too large I bet 20 watts would work just fine. I don't really understand this since the output transformers are supposed to match the speaker impedance, so saying a tube amp has a high output impedance is a false flag...I understand using the 4 ohm tap to adjust for the impedance dips. Bruce Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeSt Posted December 15, 2012 Author Share Posted December 15, 2012 I had a little 15 watt Sherwood tube amp hooked up to KLF years ago it and sounded very nice but I don't think it was powerful enough, especially for the bass. I'm more interested in mid and treble now though, I don't need loud, deep bass anymore. The tube eq sounds like a good idea I could try. I can always sell it if it sounds bad. I can try Crites crossovers too. First I want to see how the tube amp changes the freq response by itself though. Testing an amp before buying might be difficult, I'msort of familiar with it already, but I just want to be sure to get a good amp like a Citation or Stromberg, or even Luxman. I guess I'll need a variac since it'' be on all day almost everyday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pzannucci Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 I had a little 15 watt Sherwood tube amp hooked up to KLF years ago it and sounded very nice but I don't think it was powerful enough, especially for the bass. I'm more interested in mid and treble now though, I don't need loud, deep bass anymore. If you are not worried about tight bass, then you may be ok. For the bass to keep up with the mids and treble, the amp needs some current. Speaker positioning may be able to make up for some of that missing bass but there will be a little less control with tubes. The frequency response might be interesting based on the amplifier but you will need to listen to the combo. A 6550 or KT-88 based amp might work very reasonably. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 My Onkyo a-9555 is acting flaky and I need to start looking for a new amp. The only concern I have is that I turn on my amp in the morning and don't turn it off until late at night. Will that be a problem for a tube amp? Yes, it is. Tubes have a finite and short life: the more that they're on, the shorter the period of time until replacement is required.The Onkyo is considered good bang for the buck, so I'd like to find something similar that has good price/performance ratio and is an improvement over the Onkyo.See:http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1294012116&openflup&3&4 http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/p/110956/1117301.aspx Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leftwinger57 Posted December 17, 2012 Share Posted December 17, 2012 There was this whole debate on the Polk site a few months ago and believe it or not it was pretty close to a 50/50 split to keep amps on or whether or not they are tubes. Me I have an Adcom gfa 555 ss amp and I do shut it down for the night. With that being said I think many of us are unwitting hypocrites when they say they turn off all their gear.When most of us have a home theater and a powered sub to go w/ it I do not know of anyone who shuts down their sub. I do know that some more advanced subs have an auto feature when not getting a signal it goes into stand by mode. If I owned tubes I think I would shut them down nightly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 Tubes have a finite and short life: the more that they're on, the shorter the period of time until replacement is required. They do have a finite life, however... my Merlin preamp has two tubes, one of them being the rectifier. I have replaced the 6922/6DJ8 tube once and the rectifier once over a seven year period. The rectifier didn't really need changing, but I had an extra. My Welborne Labs 2A3 amps I have had for 5 or six years and am not changed any of the tubes (I swapped to see if I liked one brand over another, but they were close enough I put the originals back in). I understand that SS usually never needs work, but this is not a problem for me. YMMV [] Bruce Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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