Amp recommendations


Looking for some advice. My 25 year old amp has given up the ghost and I haven’t kept up with what’s good out there. Instead of sinking money in my existing amp, I’m thinking of replacing it. The amp that went bad is a Cary Audio CAD 300B (none of the tubes are working, one of the rectifiers flashes when turned on, I checked the tube fuses). The preamp is a Cary Audio SLP-70 (I recently had it checked out and retubed it). The speakers are Chapman T-7. I also have a Creek CD-60 and Project 1.2 turntable. Music Meter inter connects. My budget is around $4000 for a new amp. Is this a reasonable budget? What amp recommendations do you have? I’d prefer to stay with vacuum tube but if there are solid state amps that you’d recommend, please do so. I can provide specs on the components if needed. Thanks for your advice.
z32kerber

Showing 1 response by thehorn

As usual folks negate to include the LxWxH of the room they're playing their system in but in this case it doesn't matter.

Man have you got the wrong amp for a 4Ω speaker, with a 88SPL that has a frequency response of 26Hz-20kHz. Once you get a demand for a note dipping under 60Hz you're pulling a freight train with a burro when you need a locomotive, (nice speaker by the way). Little wonder you fried your 30W amp. (nice pre-amp too).

You've got a tube pre-amp which will give you your classic tube sonic signature (before turfing that SPL 70 you may want to consider installing Mundorf Supreme Silver/Oil capcitors). Now you need a quality Amp with brains and brawn to man handle those speakers.

It's a wide variance but IMHO consider a used Bryston ST4B, a Krell KSA 200S, one of the Class A Thresholds, or if you're dead set on the headache of driver tubes, a new ANTIQUE SOUND LAB HURRICANE 200 DT, or a used RAY LUMLEY M-150 (if you can find one).


  I'm with Russ69 save the 300B if you can and use it for a second system.