Great Vintage Amps-which one for you?

The D-79 series amplifiers from Audio Research were perhaps the pinnacle of "any" amp that company has ever made! The D-150.. in their day was at the edge of the art as far as high powered tube amps go,however...that said...they are the equivalent of the older MAC stuff sonically... with a soft, lumpy and bloated bass and a rolled off top end. Musical in a way- but pretty mediocre by todays standards in vacuum tube design. The later D-115 was a great amp with some serious balls that stomped it in every which way,and would certainly qualify as a true classic that can still compete sonically with much of the esoteric modern stuff of today.Destined to become a collectors item like the D-79b and rightly so! The original Grant Lumley 100m's also come to mind as well as the original 8417 version of the Quicksilver monos.Anybody remember the Radford st-25, or the Beard st-35's from Enland? both of them make magic!If you can get by with 35 watts/side the Beard amp can compete with just about anything out there regardless of price.

My primary preamp is a Counterpoint SA-11, which I like a lot.

There are many I would like to hear again in the context of what I know now. My list : AEA A-620, Sony Esprit and AudioLab, Citation XX, Ampzilla (I own one, a son too), Infinity Switching amp with the cool blue lights, and the Kenwood mono blocks LM-07 i think is the model. I've heard some awesome music with these amps and some great older speakers which I would like to hear also: Fried W's, Mission 770's (awesome bass definition), Dahlquist DQ-10's, Hill Plasmatronics (what 10 grand used to buy), stacked Advents, ESS Transar's and AMT-1D's,.........

hi, I own a few luxman amps which I think are awesome.I think they are a bargain for what prices they fetch on ebay, Craig.

Frankly, the Hafler kit built amps were tough to beat. Mine lasted over 20 years in my system. I gave it to my music starved brother who's using it now. The differences between it and my brand new Odyssey were slight.

Hammer