Favorite Tube Amps, Reasonably Priced

I use the new Rogue Audio Tempest Magnum with my Virgos $2695 Integrated. It is a huge step up in quality from the stock tempest with a much larger power supply and output transformers. It renders a huge soundstage with great detail and is able to really kick, if want even more power I would go with the Magnum 120 monos. I find Cary to hideously overpriced and colored to a faulr, I've heard many of their amps in many situations.

Hi .. check out the Granite Audio 860.1 mono blocks ... they are supurb .and come with an in home demo program .. www.graniteaudio.com

stephen

AMC makes tube amps which I believe are designed in the UK and made in the far east. Their list prices are not much to get excited about, but their gear seems to be highly discounted, especially on ebay. I could not resist this situation and bought their model#cvt2100 which is an 80 watt tube amp using 4 kt88's for $700. It sounded fine, very similar to Quicksilver Mono's that I also own. It was a little more forward in the midrange than the Quicksilvers but it had more extended high's and lows. The only negative I could think of was that the amp had fans and I could barely hear them during quiet passages. Also, because of the fans, you need to give the amp some breathing room. The amp turned on and off with no funny noises and the tubes will probably last a long time due to their being fan cooled. Resetting the bias after changing the tubes was a little tricky-probably best left to a technician.

Rogues are great and have balls out the yang.I picked up a Mesa Baron used fpr cheap and i'll tell 'ya nothing beats tons of tube power.If you can wait fo it to come up used the Baron is terrific in that it can be switched from pentode to single ended in thirds and let's you customize the sound.It is $4K new but I see them going for less than half that all the time.

Cary 805 is one of my favorite amps and they will amaze you with Virgos! If you're in NJ or close you can go to Audioconnection in Verona to listen to them in that setup or just simply go to www.audioconnect.com and ask a quote on new or used model.

I have been very pleased with the Cary SLAM 100s which sometimes come up here for 2500/pair which would be great value.

I have heard that many, but I was pretty impressed by the Rogue monoblocks (M120's, I think). They're pretty reasonably priced and they sound pretty great. They've gotten quite a few good reviews too.

One of the best and easy to maintain is the EAR 534 . It is in chrome has balanced ins or rca and level controls for each channel - puts out 50 wpc and can drive ML's to great levels.It can also switch to mono for more versatility. It retails for 3695 in chrome - can be obtained new for 2500.

You might take a look at the Kora line. Lots of Great sound for the money. Give Joe a call at JC Audio. He is a super guy & is full of info!

Good Listening