Lets talk tubes in Pharaoh Integrated

I have a Rogue Pharaoh and it's the best amp I've owned to date. It totally embarrassed 11k worth of SS MacIntosh pre and power! The superb phono stage and headphone amp are icing on the cake for this excellent piece of gear. Highly recommended!'

I certainly love mine. I haven't had the to opportunity to compare it to much as this was mt first purchase of anything remotely hi-end. Thanks for all the comments, I may still try a different pair of tubes just to be sure it can't be better, Walter.

hi walter, yah i also have that pharaoh in my hand now, i drove it before with a harbeth c7es3, then i tried tube rolling with NOS it really had a great effect, the harbeth has a fatty tonality but with very good mid edge character, what i mean here is the edge sound  in instruments are very clear and sculpted like a statue where you can see the edges in the harbeth which i guess dynamic drivers does well compared to planars which i was using before. specifically the maggies, 1.7 and mmg respectively. btw with the harbeth i used the sylvannia since they are somewhat thin and precise in character which matches well with the fatty sound of the harbeths, now we compared it with an adcom gfa555 mk2 driving an mmg, the adcoms have that full midrange sound compare to the rogue although the rogue is too way very clean than the adcoms, was a little bit disappointed since it has that thin midrange sound, now during the comparison i forgot to bring the other tubes i got since the comparison happened in a friends house who bought my mmg, now when i went home i only have the senn 598s to compare, i used the raytheon baldwin tubes which are somewhat sweet in tone and have that fully midrange and extended in highs sound, although i dont have anymore chance to went back to my friends house since i left the US after 2 weeks, im looking forward to come back to my friends house again to compare wether still withe the raytheon it will now trump the adcoms, i really like that fullness sound in the mids of the adcom although not as clean with the rogue. I really wanted to have that full sound of the adcom and have that sweet clean sound of the rogue. Im i barking at the wrong tree? or maybe the tube would compliment that thin sound in the mids compared to the adcoms. Please advise or maybe an amperex will still improve than the raytheon baldwin. looking forward to your response PS dont want to sell the Pharaohs due to its versatility with cans and of course the balanced input and phono stage

@albers89,

My apologies for the interjection, but IME, you won't be able to achieve that "fullness" with the Pharoah. I believe I know exactly what you’re referring to and it’s the same reason I sold my Pharoah. The tubes aren’t the issue. I’m sorry to say it’s the class D topology of the amp section. It’s the same lack of body/soul/fullness (pick your term) that plagues many class D designs. Great for detail and resolution, not for immersion.

If you’re interested in an amp that has 99% of the resolution of the Pharoah, but retains the class AB "fullness," consider the Parsosound Halo Integrated.

I see this has come back around after a couple of years. News flash, I have traded the Pharaoh and (some boot) for a Modwright KWI 200. I am much happier with that over the Rogue unit. I have also added two Rythmik subs to the mix and am satisfied with those results as well. In full disclosure I think my room had the most to do with unwanted aspects of the earlier sound, I just wanted to try something else, I could see me using class D again some day. I have a small itch to try tube separates next, but that is likely a ways off if ever. In addition to the Modwright and subs I changed to audio art balanced interconnects and up-graded speaker cables as well true bi-wire from Schmidt custom cables.