Lush and Romantic Tube Amps
Hi All -
I am on a quest for a lush, warm and romantic tube amp. Ideally, it should be 75 watts and upwards. I’m in a large room and my speakers are 87.5 sensitivity and 8 ohm. The room is large.
The system:
LTA preamp
Innuous Zenith music server
Merason Dac 1
Cardas Clear cables
Suggestions are welcomed.
Surprisingly, the setups I've heard so far that could be described as lush, warm, and romantic utilized SS amps. One used a Vitus integrated and another an Esoteric Class A power amp. My experience with higher powered tube amps is that they give highly realistic sound with plenty of excitement. I am using one, a Lab12 Integre 4 MKII and I definitely won't describe it as warm and romantic. |
@marco1 Two recent SS amps that I really like at your price range are Perreaux 300ix and HifiRose RA180. IMO the only SS amp I consider to be better than the 300ix is Aavik I-280. Soulnote A2, Luxman L-509x, Hegel H390, Accuphase E380 are other popular recommendations at this price point. I've heard the Soulnote paired with Vivid speakers but they sounded rather fuzzy, but could be just the speakers. Karl Fink loves it to death though and demoed his new Epos speaker almost exclusively. |
