My 2 cents from someone who owns tube amps and that my system sounds pretty good. First make sure that your DAC has an high output voltage 6V it’s ideally but no less than 4V, this will make your requiere less watts to drive those speakers. Second I will recommend going for Audio Research, for me those are some of the best tubes Amps and you can find a lot of used ones here. I owned also the MC275 from McIntosh and it’s a great amp but depending on the model ARC could be a better amp. There are so many options in the market I will recommend you to listen to them before buying anything because at the end we all have different tastes.
I'm going to buy my first tube amp. I need honest blunt opinions
Recommendations please. I am thinking of dipping my toes in the tube amp water. For the longest time I have been tempted to buy a modest tube amp to run my Monitor Gold 300’s at 90db.
I’ve been toying around, researching the different characteristics of SET, class A, class AB, B Ultralinear tube amps for months. It’s a bit much. As far as the reviewers go, they are too vague. They are afraid to be upfront honest.
Sources are a Parasound JC 3+, a Innous ZENith Mk3, and a Oppo going to a Benchmark DAC, then all go to a Benchmark LA 4 preamp that will feed the new amp.
My room is 16 x16. The speakers have a 12-foot spread. I sit 14 feet back, so it’s not that big of a room.
I have narrowed it down to four candidates.
A used Canary Audio M90 300B Tube Amp at 24RMS,300B push-pull stereo triode Class A $4,000
A used Jadis Orchestra Black, 40 RMS, Class B $4,000
A 16-year-old, Used Cary Audio Six Pac Monoblock’s, 50 triode watts A/AB $2,000
A new Dynaco by WILL VINCENT 35RMS Ultralinear $2,300