2. amps-preamps
  3. 979614451

New To Tubes & Direct Wadia to Tube Amp

I currently run a Wadia 850 direct to a Jeff Rowland Model 2, with balanced XLR interconnects. I have been thinking about purchasing a tube amp to check out the differences. I would greatly appreciate some advice on the following questions: (1) Do you recommend against a direct Wadia 850 to tube amp connection, where the tube amp is unlikely to be balanced? (2) Do you think there will be an improvement in sound with a tube amp over the Jeff Rowland Model 2, assuming a good quality amp? (3) What amps do you recommend. I have been considering everything from a used Audio Prism Debut to Quicksilver Silver 60 Monos, to the Kora Jupiter to the Audio Research V100MKII, to Sound Valve, to the Audio Electronic Supply Superamp. As you can see, I am all over the board and lost, having absolutely no experience with tubes. (4) What are your thoughts on tube mono amps versus stereo amps? (5) Is auto bias adjustment a good thing or a bad thing? My speakers are fairly efficient at 90db / 8 ohms/ I greatly appreciate your input.
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Showing 2 responses by randalleron

randalleron
63 posts
 
i run my 850 directly into a pair of cj's perm. 12 amps (wltraliner, generally using 6550's. but i have experimented with kt90s). as cj does not incorporate balanced in/outputs, evenrything is connected via rca. i'm really, really happy. your choice of amp should depend, in part, upon your speakers (that is to say, it's power output should adequatly drive your speakers). in terms of blbloom's commnets, i was origionally shopping for an 830, but found a great deal on an 850 and snapped it up. there is a big difference between the two. they're both really well made and extremely musical machines. but i'm not at all surprised to learn that they behave differently when used with and without a preamp. by the way, bias adjust is a good thing. in short (and wihtout a lot of techincal explination, which is generally lost on my pea brain), it allows you to bias each tube (or each side) individually to get maximum performance. and you needn't worry about buying matched sets (but i still do). good luck. randy
randalleron
63 posts
 
i'm currently using kimber's kcag and i really like them. i experimented with some of transparent's offerings (i'm using their speaker cable) but was happier with the kcags (they were a bit tinny at first, but broke in quite nicely). by way of background, until recently i was living in asia where good deals were relatively easy to come by (thus, the 850 rather than the 830). anyway, i got a good deal on a 1m pair of rca kcags and snapped them up. since then, i have seen a number of postings here about other, less costly, silver-based cables. sorry to say that my memory (or, more specifically, what my undergrad days did to my memory) isn't being too helpful right now. but if you spend a few minutes searching cable threads, you should be able to find out some more info. separately, as i re-read your thread, i too have pretty efficent speakers (somewhere in the 90-92 db/4 ohms range) and they are more than happy with the 140wpc that my amps give them. before i upgraded, i ran them briefly from cj's mv55 (45 wpc). they sounded good, the the additional power really opened them up and helped them sing. i've been told that they would have reacted just as well to about 70-80 wpc (i was shopping cj's premier 11a, an 85 wpc vtl offering and ar's 100wpc offering) but i never tried. i'll be interested to learn what amp(s) win your heart. randy.
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