Cary 805 vs 211 amp

I have the 211's and just ordered the 805AE's. Give me another week or two and I'll have both to compare. My GUESS is that the 805AE's will be sweeter sounding because of their SET design. Plus, the 805's allow 845 or 211 tube options.

Be aware of the nice upgrades Cary offers on the 805's (and other products). I went for all three upgrades.

SET usually trumps PP....but not always.

IMHO, both the 805 and 211 amps are not a good match for the B&W 800 Diamonds.

I must agree with Brf, as the 800 Diamond is not a good match for tubes due to the extreme variations in its impedance and phase angle. Take a look at the graph here.

Joey,
I like your taste in amplifiers but ageee with the comments above. That
speaker isn't the best choice for those amps. That speaker was most
probably meant to be driven by high current type transistor amplification.

Guys - what do you think of Pass XA amps with B&W? The XA amps I've heard are quite tube like - especially the XA.5 series.

Mike

The Pass xa point 5 series will work with B&W speakers quite well. I have seen and heard this combo a couple of times with excellent results.

IMO, the Cary 805 is an excellent amp (I've owned mine for a decade+) and it can easily drive semi-difficult speakers like my Verity P/Es. However, I'd agree that the B&W's load looks like SET amps need not apply.

Would the 211 be ok Marty? Cary said it should be a great match.

I mean people have run the 805AE into some Martin Logan summits and those have terrible impedence graphs... If any of the more knowledgeable members can compare the two and see if the impendece curve of the BW 800 diamonds to be terrible.

Joey,

I'm just speculating because I've never heard the specific combination. There's a tough combination of steep phase angle and app 4 ohm impedance between 1khz and 2 khz on the graph so kindly linked by tls49. I'd personally be concerned because that's in a place where the ear is very sensitive. Therefore, an audition would be important for me.

As to the Cary 211, I have no experience. I own Cary 805s and 300Bs and think very highly of both amps. The 805 is probably suitable for use with a greater variety of speakers than all but a few SET designs, but they're still not for every application. I'd proceed with caution.

Just MHO.

Spoke to cary and I sent them the graph above - they said the 211 has 4ohm taps and should be ok.

Joey,
I hope you're able to actually hear this match and then decide. I'm bias in favor of tube power amps but some speakers are designed with the intention of SS amplifiers driving them.It seems the B&W is one of those speakers.
Good Luck,

Yeah.. either I go full tubes from SLP-05 down to 211 amps.... or perhaps I stick with a hybrid system and I've had good experience with the Cary 05 paired with a Plinius SA-102 in the past on some martin logan Summits.

So this time, perhaps something similar like a SA-103 or the SA-REF paired with the SLP-05 at preamp duties would work on a speaker like the BW.

Joey, I think that the 211 is a push-pull design, right? If so, it's no surprise that Cary sees a better match for that speaker load with the 211 than it sees with the single ended 805.