Looking for a small tube amp (possibly integrated tube amp)... low power, nice sound


System changes and very efficient speakers has me on the hunt for a new, low-power tube amp.

I am now running an upgraded pair of Tekton Double Impacts (4-ohm).  Front end is a Bluesound Node 2i streaming Tidal only - no other sources, fed into an Eastern Electric tube DAC (NOS Telefunken 12AU7 loaded) via Wireworld Starlight COAX dig cable.  Power is a Balanced Power BPT-1 with all LessLoss DFPC Original/Signature power cords throughout.  All IC's & speakers cables are Clear Day.  I have a B&K ST-55.2 SS amp with the "gain" dials on the back set to about 30% and am running RCAs directly into it (no preamp).  The issues that I have been having with preamps is the gain... many have 20db or more gain and even with this small B&K amp, the usable volume range is TINY.  So, I plan on keeping the SS B&K amp setup as is for now and look for a fairly affordable tube amp or integrated tube amp for when I want to listen to low-level stuff (jazz, vocals, easy listening, etc.).  It would be nice to have the ability to switch between triode & pentode or UL on the amp I suppose.  Budget is maybe up to $1,500 or so.  Based on the 4-ohm load of the Tektons and the output of the B&K amp, I figure at most, I am using around 40 watts and that is playing it INCREDIBLY loud.  So a tube amp maybe around 15-25 watts per side or so?  The Node 2i does have a very smart way to adjust/control the volume in the BlueOS app on the tablet, so I can work around things a bit, but I do not need anywhere near even 50 watts for this tube amp.

Since I already have the small solid-state B&K which can HAMMER out the tunes all day long, I am looking for a warm, smooth tube amp of generally low power.

Any thoughts/suggestions appreciated.
audiofreak32

Showing 1 response by armstrod

Shameless self-promotion: It's above your stated budget but the Decware Torii Mk IV I have for sale would sound fantastic with your Tektons, and it includes a volume control plus a myriad of other adjustments:

https://www.decware.com/cgi-bin/yabb22/YaBB.pl?num=1573444305