Never Owned a Tube Amp and Want Advice


Hi All, 

I have never owned a tube amplifier before and am planning to purchase one with a minimum of 50 watts per channel to mate with 8 ohm 88 dbl speakers.

My hope is experienced audiogoners will share their expertise regarding how to approach this. While I realize listening is the best way to learn about sound and compatibility; I want to learn a better understanding about brands with less maintenance and longer tube life, how to decide between mono or stereo,can a newbie play with bias or is auto biasing a better first choice, etc.

I would also appreciate what to look for in selecting a used tube amp to identify one that might be in need of repair. For example, with solid state depending on the brand, capacitor replacement can be more of a concern. Any advice on what to look out for or ask about with used tube amps would be appreciated.

A big question I have is how to understand the relationship between power tubes like E34's, 120.s, etc. and, I guess the driver? tubes like 12au7's and 12at7's. That  is to ask which is more critical to the overall sound of the amp? FWIW, I routinely tube roll with my preamps.  

I 've read through a number of threads but maybe someone can point me to good ones I may have missed. 

Thanks for listening,

Dsper
dsper

Showing 2 responses by hilde45

FWIW, I have Quicksilver 60wpc monoblock tube amps and at first I thought I had to have high sensitivity speakers. I did try some at 92, 93 db and they had an easier time than speakers I tried at 87 and 88 db but I have to say I found that the Monos were perfectly fine powering speakers as low as 87db. They sounded delightful and not at all underpowered. I do suspect that a lower powered tube amp might have had more trouble, but my QS has a honking transformer and easily controls those lower db speakers — which I liked better. Impedance, as lowrider57 said is very important. I had 92 db Focals which had a bad dip in the 4 and sub-4 ohm region, and that proved a problem with the sound, in my setup.

As others here have said, this is a huge topic, and I will admit, I am a newbie. So all I am saying is that I *thought* I had to rule speakers "under 90 db" out of consideration -- and I found that proved false by actual experimentation. Also worth noting: in my space, I only need to play speakers about 8 feet away, at about 80db volume to sound good an loud.
FWIW, here's the description of the 60 wpc amps from Quicksilver. Notice the comment about both being able to handle difficult speakers AND also having the finesse of a low powered amplifier. I've put some lovely KT77s in mine, and it's really does a delicate job with much of the acoustic I listen to, but has filled the room easily with orchestral stuff. Speakers are 87db, 8 ohm.

Via Quicksilver:
The new sixty watt amp retains the high damping factor and low distortion of the Horn Mono but with enough power to handle inefficient and difficult to drive speakers. The new power transformer has the same high grade core material as the output transformer. Also a new circuit increases the power tube bias at higher powers allowing the amp to have low distortion all the way up to clipping. At reduced powers this circuit gives the efficiency, finesse and delicacy of a low powered amplifier.

Power Output 60 watts into 4 or 8 ohms
Power Bandwidth 14 Hz to 70 KHz
Damping Factor 20
Input Sensitivity 1.2 volts
Input Impedance 100 Kohm
I.M. Distortion: less than 0.5% at 60 watts
Tube Complement two KT88, 1-12AX7, 1-12BH7
Power Consumption 100 watts at idle 200 watts at full power