sansui80 Posted May 21, 2005 Share Posted May 21, 2005 Good morning members.... I have a question that I need some good input on because I do not want to get rid of a new amp I just bought for the klipsch klf30's I have. I currently run a Luxman Hybrid intergrated amp rated a 90 watt per channel and The tube preamp in the hybrid sounds great It make the mids and highs wonderful. I just felt like I was not getting the full potential of the speakers . So I opted to buy used a Adcom 5800 amp. 250 watts per channel. I hooked it up to a Luxman Hybrid CD player I have that has a varaible inputs and volume control. I soon found that the mids and highs that this amp produces do not mesh with the brightness the mids and highs already produce. The two just dont match up right!!!! Never fear. My question to the forum members is: Which preamp on the used market would best fix my brightness problem on the mid and highs and allow this massive amp to preform in the Bass areas that I need it to. My budget is $500.00 or lower in price and it can be tube or solid state and it must have tone controls. I dont care what some audiophiles say about tone controls, I want them and I want to be able to bypass them... Please respond in droves..... Because right now I am thinking that my luxman hybrid 90 watt can best this ADCOM any day of the week .I also have a cambridge 640c CD Player to use with this setup. I also have a extensive record collection. If I have to by a phono preamp so be it , but It would be good if I could find a good quality phono section with the preamp. I could go possible to the 600.00/700.00 range overall . Thanks from the new guy, Ben Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurch Posted May 21, 2005 Share Posted May 21, 2005 Ben, Here's the problem: manufacturers don't make money by producing preamps which color the sound or coverup things we might not like about some amps. The trend for tube preamps has been towards more transparency and neutrality. That kinda eliminates newer preamps. Especially when you want to have tone controls, you heathen!!! Anyways, you can look at older preamps, like Dynaco PAS, Conrad Johnson PV-5 (no tone controls), HK Citation 1, and others which are known for a warm sound. WARNING: DON'T TRY TO DRIVE LONG INTERCONNECTS TO YOUR AMP WITH THESE PREAMPS! The first thing I would do though is to try to biamp the KLFs with what you have now. Attach the Adcom to the bass terminals on your speakers and the Luxman to the mid-tweeter binding posts and see what it sounds like. This should give you the bass you want with the mids and highs you like. The only problem is that your amps are not gain-matched and the Adcom doesn't have it's own level controls. This means that you will alter the balance between the bass cones and the mids/tweeters, which is generally a bad thing. You will probably have to whip up a set of interconnects with a resistor built-in to match the Adcom's output to that of the Luxman's (assuming the Adcom's gain of 29db is greater than the Luxman's amp). Good Luck and let us know what you do. Jeff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurch Posted May 21, 2005 Share Posted May 21, 2005 Ben, Does your integrated amp have pre-out jacks? The bi-amp concept presupposes that it does. Otherwise, you' won't be able to do this. Jeff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leok Posted May 21, 2005 Share Posted May 21, 2005 Many SS amps, especially very powerful ones, do not handle lower powers very well, making eficient speakers, like the KLF 30s sound harsh and thin. A tube or class-A ss amp will almost certainly have a fuller sound because there is not a lot of mid and high frequency distortion at low power. With efficient speakers, you have to have an amp that does low power well. Often it is crossover distortion of the output transistort that is causing most of the trouble. Leo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sansui80 Posted May 22, 2005 Author Share Posted May 22, 2005 Hello Jeff, Thanks for the info. I deceided to have the adcom gone over by a tech. on side is running hot. the bias setting is off. This amp is supposed to run Class A for 10 watts the class AB un to 250 watts. Secondly I bought a prreamp... Luxman C-12, with tone turnover controls for 145.00 off audiogon. This is temporay until I have researched the best tube pre for the job.... I am going to buy better speaker cables and truly biwire the system with two sets of wires. I will invest in a top notch power cable for amp and interconnects. We will see. I wont have this acomplished until the 2nd week of june... I will keep you posted. IU repositioned my klipsck kl30's in the corners of my DEN approx 12 feet apart and they have better bass response with my Luxman A-491 Itegrated Amp. Its a Hybrid tube. Sounds great with a Cambridge 640 C CD Player. I wonder if I will do any better with the Adcom later on???? Ben Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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