60 watt Rogue Tubes for Vandersteen 3A Signatures


I own 3A Signatures and have a chance to get a 60 watt Rogue tube amp. Will the Rogue drive the Vandies okay? The least I've ever used with them is around 100 watts, but that was solid state.
ecruz

Showing 2 responses by krisjan

I power my 3A Sigs with Vincent ST-800 monoblocks which are a tubed/ss hybrid with 200 w/ch. This works really well. My rule of thumb - tubed power will sound like SS power of twice the watts. So, the 60 tubed watts will sound like 120 watts ss. I don't think that will be enough with the 3A's unless you only listen to chamber music. I would suggest at least 100 tube watts.
Unsound - power specs for amps are developed under static conditions. Music, however, is dynamic and that is where the difference between SS and tubes becomes evident. In my experience, tube amps deliver more dynamic power and hence sound more powerful in practical music listening than SS at comparable static power specs. This has been a consistent observation over many years and many different ss and tubed amps. Of course there are MANY factors that affect the resulting sound (like power supply, distortion profile of ss vs. tubes, etc) but for sheer dynamic power, tubes seem better to me.