Help with tube amps

Emily: What speakers are you using and how large is your room? If the speakers are efficient and have a reasonably flat impedence curve that does not dip too low, it will open up the number of possible choices greatly and if this is not the case then it will narrow the search down. I also supect that if you end up with a good system match that you and Hub may end up burning those tubes more often than you imagined. My wife loves the sound of our tube amp even on nights when I am grumpy (it makes no difference). I recall that you had an Adcom preamp, but cannot remember the rest of your system. Did you want a power amp only to use with your pre, or would an integrated amp be more practical? I used a solid state pre with tube amps in the 70's. It sounded good to me and was nice and quiet.

I am sorry, I forgot about telling about my speakers. We run a pair of NEAR 50me mkII, with low senstivity but not a difficult load to drive. Right now we are in a small room, about 12'x12'. Our current system is an Adcom GFA-5802, an Adcom GFP-750, and Sonic Frontiers SFCD-1 running with MIT MH-750 bi-wire cables and Yellow Viper interconnects. Thanks for all the advice so far everyone!

If you are really looking for that romantic glow I can highly recommend conrad-johnson. Their older MV-75 amp would have plenty of drive for your speakers, they are still serviced by c-j, and can be had for about $700. You might also find one of their newer MV-45 or 50 amps for about $1k.
The used Quicksilver mono amps are also and excellent. And if you want to buy new, check out Antique Sound Labs (www.divertech.com) and Audio Electronic Supply (www.audioelectronicsupply.com) Both companies make 25-30 watt amps for under $1k.

I agree with David - The C.J. MV-55 would be a good choice, with some 'steam' to drive your speakers to reasonable levels. Not far from your budget - there are two on the site at present. Question is: Will you be able to resist getting a tube pre? Hmmmmm.......Cheers, -John

You might want to take a look at the VTL ST-85...it can be had for ~$950 used. It has a nice look to it...you can see the tubes aglow through the from faceplate. It is also nice sounding piece...not quite as "romantic" sounding as the C-J stuff, but will give you that "tube magic".