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 7 responses by z32kerber

Thanks to everyone for the great feedback and recommendations. I’ve been doing a lot of research into things related to what’s been said. Here’s my plan. Start by having all the tubes tested. If it’s just a tube problem, then I’ll replace them. If the tubes are good, then I’ll make some calls regarding getting my Cary repaired. But my concern is then having an amp that’s underpowered (25 watts RMS) for my 90dB speakers. Then decide whether to replace the amp and sell the Cary or keep the Cary get new speakers. 
@charles1dad 
I’ve had this amp/speaker combo for 23 years. I’ve always loved the sound. Before the 300B amp, I had a pair of Cary 40 watt mono blocks with these speakers. The 300B was a big step up sound wise. The pairing was suggested by The Audio Connection in Seattle. By the way, the Cary 300B amp is not an SET amp. It’s a push-pull rated at 25 watts. 
@charles1dad 
thank you again for your fantastic insight. The 40 watt mono blocks I had were Cary 40Ms. They used EL-34 tubes. My preference in music is like yours - jazz.  
Some history. In 2017 I did some retubing. I replaced the Cetron 300Bs with Genalex Gold Lions. In late 2018, I was having some issues with the amp and took it to a recommended shop here in the Portland Oregon area to have it checked out. He found that the rectifier tubes needed replacing and replaced them with JJ 5U4GBs. He also found come caps that were bad. He bench tested it and set the bias. I had been busy with projects and other things for the last couple of months and hadn’t listened to my system. Last week I went to power it up. I always let things warm up before playing any music. When I went back 15 minutes later to play something I noticed only 1 of the the 300Bs was glowing and not that much. The others were stone cold and the 1 that was glowing wasn’t that warm. One thing that I noticed was that when I powered it down, the “plate voltage” light stayed on for a long time. When things were fine, the light would go away after a minute or so when powering down. Not sure if this has anything to do with my situation.
I wasn’t overly satisfied with the shop I took my amp to in 2018. He’s a one man shop and super busy. It took him 2 months before he actually looked at my amp. Then it was only a couple of days before it was done. It felt to me like he rushed through my job. So my plan is to try and find another shop nearby (might have to go to Seattle or possibly ship it somewhere), that can figure this out and get it repaired. 
@charles1dad One thing that’s always impressed me about the 300B amp is how "powerful" it seemed to me. I rarely had to turn the volume up much to get the volume I needed.

@safebelayer
Thank you for the response. My plan is to have my 300B amp accessed and hopefully repaired. I did find someone local to me that came highly recommended. After talking to him, he sounds like he knows his stuff. But if you could send me Pat H's contact info, I'd appreciate it very much.
I looked online for Dennis Had and the only contact information I could find was through his EBay store. I sent him a message through EBay but haven't heard back from him.

This entire discussion has me thinking about upgrading my speakers to something like the Klipcsh Forte III and selling my Chapman's. If you could educate me a bit here. My 25W 300B is under powered for my 90dB Chapman speakers. I listen to mostly jazz and some pop. I rarely listen to anything at high volume as my system has always been more than loud enough at low volume settings on the preamp. At low volume settings, is the load on the amp too much or would that only happen at higher volume settings?
I guess everything hinges on how things turn out with my 300B amp.I should know more next week.

@charles1dad
My budget is around $4000.Preferably new but open to used.Room size 25' x 14'I mentioned Klipsch because others mentioned them as efficient speakers with good sound. But some reviews said they tend to lack at low frequencies (35Hz vs 28Hz on my Chapmans). I have not listened to Klipsch for many years and those were corner horns.My Cary 300B is currently in a shop right now. I found someone local that came highly recommended by another local business that deals only with valve gear. I have not heard back from him yet but expect to this week.