conrad johnson or vac?

Proper speaker matching with the CJ Premier 11a is essential. I agree with "Jab" about the CJ sounding like it "had a sheet over the speakers" but I don't think this is the fault of the CJ. I noticed the same thing when I auditioned the CJ Premier 11a in a dealer showroom mated to a pair of somewhat large Avalon speaker - don't recall the model. I brought the demo amp home to drive my modest Thiel CS 1.5's and they sound incredible! No "sheet"! ;-)

CJ Premier 11a can take KT-88's... I'm using a set in my Premier 11a for slightly better bass but the stock 6550's weren't bad at all. AUDITION the amps with your speakers first if at all possible. Have fun!

I somewhat agree with the two comments above regarding CJ Premier 11a. I'm driving a pair of Thiel CS 1.5's and they do sound very good in my smallish listening room. These smaller Thiels do not require a lot of power and current and they present a relatively stable 4 ohm mostly resistive load. They do not sound like there's a sheet over them and in fact they sound better driven by the CJ than my previous amp, the 200w/ch Classe CA-200 solid state amp (sold it). A little more power might be nice and I'd love to try the CJ 12's someday but the Premier 11a drives the CS 1.5's to good volume levels. I wouldn't try a bigger set of Thiels with the Premier 11a but the modest CS 1.5's are a good match. The point being, try your short list of tube amps on YOUR speakers in YOUR home before making a final decision.

CJ Premier 11a and 12's use solid state power supply rectification as there are no rectifier tubes anywhere on the CJ chassis, just signal tubes and power tubes.

...Abe