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Tube Amp for Cornwall II


RonW.

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If the Cornwall's sound good with 110 watts you can consider this:

 

I used this with my RF 7's for the past several years.  This hybid amp is 80 or 85 watts with a tube preamp and a solid state rear.  Great power and musical detail.  It will not break the bank and most important, it look good!

Edited by derrickdj1
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^ great points...

 

if OP had said, "price is no object" I bet we could come up with more than a few suggestions.

 

if he said, " I want to spend around $3000-$3500" I would also be willing to say that there are a couple of really viable long term amplifiers available.

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Ron,

 

One more thing for me to add. I would suggest you post a thread on tube amps with Korns and see if you can have someone bring their amp to your home to hook into your speakers,if they are not builders/sellers. I did that for Heritage Line listening at the proposal from a forum member on here and had a bunch of responses. 

 

If you do get responses, they will all have different output levels and you can experiment with near field listening as well as louder listening levels. Worst case, you get no response and still may be able to get someone who builds come to your home and measure room acoustics and bring a few demo's. I don't have many in my neck of the woods who can do either, so I am stuck with taking suggestions on room prep and speaker layouts. 

 

Maynard and Justin are the only 2 that I know of who build and sell, and both have given me a lot of insight with things without asking for a dime. And both have suggested different companies to try if they aren't able to accommodate what I am looking to do. I know there are several others on here that do the same, I just have not come across them yet.

 

Having someone tell you to purchase something without listening to it is based on their acoustics, and not the science behind things. When I had it explained to me from a scientific aspect, it totally changed how I look at listening to and playing music.

 

Just my 0.02c

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If the Cornwall's sound good with 110 watts you can consider this:

 

I used this with my RF 7's for the past several years.  This hybid amp is 80 or 85 watts with a tube preamp and a solid state rear.  Great power and musical detail.  It will not break the bank and most important, it look good!

 

Wow, only $406 with free shipping, is that right??

 

http://www.hi-end.on9mart.com/cart/Yaqin_VK2100.html

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Wow, only $406 with free shipping, is that right??

 

These are relatively cheap.  I wonder how much they would cost if American made.  I have not had any desire for more with my RF 7's in 5000 cu ft. room  I had this and a McIntosh 1700 or 1900 refurb unit a kept this one. I have compared the SQ to some of my favorite SS amps, Yamaha M 80, Carver, Acurus and McIntosh.  In that room the amp would have no problem with your Cornwalls and will also look good.  High WAF!.

Edited by derrickdj1
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Hi RonW,

I have similar room size like yours with lower ceiling (approx. 10').

I'm running ST120 tube amp & SP12 tube pre-amp on my CW-I with Bob Crites's crossover.

I like to listen to jazz and when I play loud (3 o'clock position on the power amp), to my ears the sound of the sax/trumpet is just like somebody play in my living room with no harsh what so ever.

Check their website on " http://www.tubes4hifi.com/bob.htm "

Chees,

Jimmy

Edited by jimmytamp
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  • 3 weeks later...

Been thinking about switching over to tubes…. Which amp would you pair with Cornwall II with titanium tweets and updated Crites crossovers.

 

Thanks,

 

RW,

 

 

I won't recommend a specific amp.

 

With the Cornwalls, K-Horns, LaScalas etc 2 Watts will take your head off. With my LaScalas it will drive you out of the room, possibly the house.

 

The numbers you need to focus on are  the first .5 watts and lower (where you will do most of your listening) up to 2 watts. With a 20 watt amp leaves you 9db of head room (hope this is the correct use of the term) after the unit is screaming. More watts means a more complex design with more trade offs and more things that can go wrong for zero gain, a pointless waste of money.

 

Amps are not linear in their performance, tubes inc. but tubes can deliver stellar numbers compared to anything at less than 1 W.

 

Reserve power to deliver the punch on piano strikes etc comes from the Transformers and Capacitors where it is stored.

 

Tube amps score low on damping, so use 10GA cable with the shortest runs possible. Don't waste time an money on issues like molecule alignment, low impedance is what you need.

 

http://www.knukonceptz.com/mobile-audio/speaker-wire/kord-speaker-wire/sp/kord-ultra-flex-10-gauge-speaker-wire/

 

IMHO tube pre-amps are a waste of money and a net negative.

 

My thoughts have migrated to using a THX rated Surround Receiver or Pre-amp to feed amplifiers of all kinds and purchase the phono stage of your choice to go with it.

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Tube amps score low on damping, so use 10GA cable with the shortest runs possible. Don't waste time an money on issues like molecule alignment, low impedance is what you need.

 

I really don't understand how using 10 AWG wire is going lower the damping factor of a tube amplifier.

 

With damping, the larger the number the better until you get into diminishing returns.

 

Resistance decreases with thicker wire, so thick wire doesn't make the damping worse. The longer any wire is, the greater it's resistance.

 

If I were an expert, I would sat that 20 is the magic number, after that declining returns set in quickly.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damping_factor

 

"If the speaker impedance is 8 ohms, and the amplifier output impedance is 0.01 ohms, the damping factor is 800. That's a simplification. Since the speaker impedance and amplifie
r output impedance vary with frequency, so does the damping factor. Also, the impedance of the speaker cable affects damping. Thick cables (with low AWG) allow more damping than thin cables with (high AWG).
 
The lower the amplifier's output impedance, the higher the damping factor, and the tighter the sound is. A damping factor of 1000 or greater is consider

ed high. High damping factor equals tight bass"

 

http://www.crownaudio.com/media/pdf/amps/damping_factor.pdf

 

 

White Paper Tube damping vs SS numbers what to they really mean

 

"CONCLUSIONS

It should be obvious at this point that the quoted damping factor of an amplifier is important only if the figure lies somewhere below 20 or so. Changing the damping factor from 2 to 20 does change the performance of the loudspeaker system (for better or for worse, depending upon the speaker). But trying to prove that a damping factor of 200 or even more is somehow better than one of 20 is pretty unconvincing because the effective difference in the practical case cited is only that between 1.25 and 1.32."

 

http://www.butleraudio.com/damping1.php

 

http://www.audioholics.com/audio-amplifier/damping-factor-effects-on-system-response

 

 

Very cool, plug the numbers and calc the various factors

 

http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-bridging.htm

Edited by Bubo
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To the OP, I've been running my CIIs with a PrimaLuna Prologue 5 for a few weeks.  Took about a week with the new set of tubes to break in and really come to life, but really loving it now.  Way more than enough power and plenty of headspace.  Been rotating my listening from classic rock to jazz to classical.  All sound great to me in my room.  :)

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Consider getting additional crossover from Bob Crite to biamp. Use your Carver SS on the woofers, and a modified Dynaco ST35 or ST70 on the Horns/tweeters. Really nice to be able adjust the level of both amps.

I also agree Justin who owns http://ampsandsound.com builds qualify stuff (has push pull or single ended). Also Holger the owner of http://www.tubenirvana.net stuff is great too (only build push pull amps). Both are guys you can trust. Costs a bit more then a used Dynaco.

If you go with biamp, you not need a lot of tube watts. Make sure to either pick a tube amp with a gain control or use RCA cable with a volume control. Though most audiophiles would argue these RCA's degrade the sound, I'd bet a lot of money in a blind listening they'd never know this type of RCA was used. They sell on Amizon for $15-20.

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Been thinking about switching over to tubes…. Which amp would you pair with Cornwall II with titanium tweets and updated Crites crossovers.

 

Thanks,

 

RW,

quick question - why switch to tubes now  - what were you using so far - if I am asking it's because I have Cornwalls myself  and your questions are a mirror -

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