Amp for Vintage Heresy

A friend of mine has vintage Heresy speakers paired with a Fisher 500C receiver. It's a good match. It's not a high-end audiophile system but it's fun to listen to. He has a bar in his basement and this system along with a pool table. Great system for the environment.

500c (fisherdoctor.com)

Overall I agree with @mrdecibel but really did enjoy a Tube Amp and Tube Pre with my Heresy 1's .  I even ran a Tube DAC with them to take some of the brightness out as they were usually  in smaller room.  My son now has them and uses an old but fully restored solid state Luxman 100U and I was pleasantly surprised how well they sounded.

The crossovers were updated by Crites . I sent them in and they were reasonable to ship and have them do the work correctly. I sent the crossovers in only, not the speakers.

When I had my Heresy’s they were a great match with my McIntosh 240. 

Some good recommendations above. There are so many great solid state power amps available that tubes should be left for preamps and sources, ime, if you want some warmth and coloration. You need to damp the mid and high frequency horns and the woofer baskets using a Dynamat type material and use self-adhesive sealing tape (used for doors/windows) for the rear panels (between the cabinets and rear panels for a better cabinet seal. Upgrade the crossovers using Crites, get a fast subwoofer (or two), and experiment with raising them off the floor with good solid stands (I prefer the Heresy elevated). BTW, I consider myself quite knowledgeable and experienced with Klipsch, specifically the Heritage line. If PRAT is important to you, solid state is the way to go. You need to determine what sq attributes and characteristics are most important to you. My best, MrD.

I had a NAD 316B with vintage Yamaha NS-670 speakers while assembling Yamaha gear from same time period ~1976-78. For a few weeks had both NAD316 and Yamaha CA-1010 with same speakers. Sound difference? No idea other than Yamaha had more power for A-B volume test. Add in that at 56yrs old, ears are damaged goods as are everyone's. Perceived quality...well, no contest. Yamaha has VU meters, real wood veneer case, metal knobs & switches that click when you use them, heaven. Add in turntable and parents album collection from same time period is synergy at it's finest. You hear with your eyes better than your ears 

I run my Heresy and Forte II with a Dennis Had Inspire 45 amp and Had LP3.1 preamp.  Both sets of speakers have Crites upgrades, and the amp uses Emission Labs tubes.

The Inspire 45 may only put out around 2 watts, but it makes my Klipsch speakers sing.

Thanks for the great input. I hadn't considered Luxman integrated tube amp but that could be real nice. I'll hunt around.

I was thinking 300b would be the right match but hearing more comments here about EL84s being better.

Update:
I returned the Wiim Pro Plus and bought a Chord mojo 2 (with my old macbook pro) and will try and clean up the source.
 

We'll leave out the part about Klipsch Heresy's sound quality and lack of bass for now and focus on doing what can be done to work with what you have. Given their 99dB sensitivity, 10-20 watts is plenty, 30-40 is overkill unless you like loud and have a big room. Also, tube amps are a given to try and tame the Heresy's midrange nasal quacking tendencies' especially on vocals. A small tube integrated like a Luxman SQ-N150. Rated at 10W/ch, it also features a more than compete MM/MC section, and the build quality only Luxman can do. If you're thinking you need the extra power, a Primaluna Evo 100 gives you 40 w/ch of EL-34 bliss. It's really quite nice, if lacking the Luxman cachet. Beyond that, you can shop the various flavors of questionable quality, but inexpensive ChiFi tubes. Proceed there at your own risk, knowing support will be ... uh, limited. A word on speaker placement. Because they lack bass, Heresy's need to leverage as much acoustic room loading as possible, so keep them up against the back walls. Pulling them into the room, as you would most speakers, just kills what little low bass they have. Remember, they were designed originally as a center fill (L+R) for Klipschorns. Finally, even though they're not my favorite speaker doesn't mean you can't do right by them and build something fun and enjoyable around them. You may also want to investigate the various crossover mod kits available.

Such wonderful speakers! They are very sensitive, allowing you to discover any bottlenecks in your system. They also sing with low power, but will never have great bass. 

There are so many mods to the speakers, XO, new drivers, sealing the box, rewire, deadening of the horns and woofer basket....

I have vintage Forte, my friend's system is vintage Hersey. My system is vintage with a 200w MOSFET amp (tube like), and his is SET think it's 8w maybe 10w? Anyway, most of my listing, even at 90+ DB is around 1-5w, they fill the room with sound. Don't need a ton of power to make them sing. 

They do like very clean signal path, will let you hear all the good, and also the bad. Bad recordings will really sound bad, but so will the good, they will sound real good. IMHO, they sound better with Tube like amps over new class D, they need a "warm" signal, or they can sound harsh, tinny, shouty. 

Add a sub (or subs) or try an amp with a very low damping factor.

If the speaker cables are 12’ (or less) try single runs of 22-26 gauge solid core copper wire as speaker cables (doing so should bloom the bass a bit).

On the cheap try basic copper magnet wire and if that works look into Neotech 22-26 gauge solid core copper/Teflon wire (still inexpensive).

Do not use wire larger than 22 gauge as this will defeat the purpose.

I’m suggesting a $10 experiment (with magnet wire) and I have been using 26 gauge solid core copper speaker cables for 20+ years with excellent results.

DeKay

Read stereophile review that comes up on google

Rogue 120 mono tube amps

Run hot but will put will put on a spectacular sound experience.

Speaking of push-pull EL84s, a musician friend recently heard the little Black Ice FX10 at the Tampa audio show and said it "rocked."  Might be a good fit here.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention as also recommended above, if you go push pull tube, IMHO, EL84s have always been my favorite given a sufficiently efficient speaker like yours.

For example, the Manley Stingray would be killer with your speakers. You can usually find a nicely priced one on the used equipment sites.

Pass is solid state.

With that said, if you go solid state, the Coda S5.5 will be your best bet. Long thread elsewhere on this forum which I've linked. Many happy users including myself.

I've had decades of experience with low powered tube amplification. Lots of good suggestions above. I would say your best current bet, especially if you don't mind a pretty simple build, would be the Elekit TU-8900, also linked below.

Finally, as also suggested above, your biggest bang for the buck would be upgrading your crossovers. A suggestion is linked below.

Coda S5.5 Class A Amp Thread

Elekit TU-8900 300B/2A3 Stereo Amp

Heresey Crossover Kit

Great feedback!

no I don’t believe they have been updated but they were sold to the owner I purchased them off of from The Turntable Shop in North Van that used to specialize in vintage audio so he might have worked on them.

I will explore restoring the Hereseys after I spend more time with them.

Pass Xa25, First Watt, Aegir, Dennis Had, Wilsenton, Decware, Elekit, Will Vincent st70. The Pass is 3k used all the others are less.

Have these Heresy been updated? Crites makes replacement crossovers and drivers. They will sound better than new. Add some sort of filter to your ethernet also.

Long experience with these. In college those Heresy’s really sang (and rocked!) with a Heathkit AA-151 EL84 tube integrated.  In today’s market, a Luxman SQ-N150 integrated would be ideal. EL84 tubes are comparatively cheap by power tube standards and with a relatively low heat output. Really lots of EL84 tube amps are out there as they were extremely common throughout the 60’s. 

I run Heresy’s with a Tektron - using a pair of 45’s with a whopping 2wpc. Great pairing. Robin Wyatt is the local distributor and he swears by the Hereseys. 

I have what I think of as Klipsch-cousins (Volti Razz). I was also looking for a new amp earlier this summer, though my goal was to have a low-powered/low heat alternative to my larger Class A tube amp. One of my solutions was a used Coincident Audio Dynamo 34 SE MK.ll. It has 8 very powerful watts, and is a SET amp that uses EL 34's instead the usual tubes such as a 300B or 2A3. I am pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoy it. I changed out the tubes to suit my taste, and it has met my goal of much lower heat in my listening room, without compromising the sound. 

If used is acceptable, you might want to look into it...

I am very happy with Heresy IIIs and I switch back in forth between a Pass XA-25 and a Dennis Had SEP tube amp. Both sound amazingly good.

Any push-pull decent tube amp. 

Thanks for the advice… anyone ran solid state on Heresey? Like a schiit argue?

I guess the Pass Labs is solid state?

Small 25wpc pass labs amps used $3k 

I run my Klipsch Quartets with a 4 watt Grommes amp, look at Decware Mini Torii or other low watt tube amp