Recommend me a Class A Integrated Amp (or sound like Class A amp)
I have been rocking a Cabasse Riga setup with a Sony TA-A1ES (a heavily biased Class A design outputting first 15 watts as Class A). I absolutely love the clarity and natural sound of it. I’ve decided to keep to Class A to upgrade if possible because the Riga does not need a lot of juice to drive.
Accuphase Class As are eye-watering expensive in my country, but thankfully Esoteric prices their Class A F-03A at much more reasonable $8600 USD. Luxman unfortunately has stopped producing Class As, so they are out of equation and besides strangely they are more expensive than Esoteric in my country. Pass Labs, well, way out of my budget.
So, for around $8600 USD or less what are my other options if I want a similar sound to Class A without going down the tube route?
I’ve heard the new HifiRose RA180 sounds quite class A like. And I think the Yamaha AS series sound quite close as well. Any more options should I consider? The pricing of other brands should be similar to US.
If you live in Singapore, you could visit Robert Lai from SG Live Acoustics https://sgliveacoustics.com/. He sells Line Magnetic wich is an excellent brand of tube amps and cheaper than your budget in some models. Maybe he can show you how good class A tube amps sound like I have a Line Magnetic LM 508 with upgraded tubes and it’s a musical monster. I agree with someone up here in the thread, good tube amps with good tubes give a sound I can’t find in solid state, even at very high prices. |
