Switching from solid state to tubes


Hello all, 

I am looking for advice regarding the purchase of a new (to me, not brand new) amplifier. I currently run a 5.1 home theater system with Sonus Faber Olympica IIs as my mains, Olympica Is as my surround, and an Emotiva center channel and SW. They are now being fed by an Emotiva XPA 5 that receives its signal from an Anthem AVM60 processor. I currently use the system 75% of the time for stereo music and the rest for 5.1 movies. And when it comes to music I do 50/50 records and streaming. 

I recently put together a Bottlehead amp and am really loving the tube sound and would look to bring that into my main system. But here are my questions going forward:
1) Would it be silly to bring in a tube amp to drive the mains and keep the rest of the system through the Emotiva SS?
2) If not, what power output should I be seeking for the stereo amp? (The Emotiva is currently rated @200 watts (8ohm)) 
3) Will the Anthem processor be able to properly match the output of the different amplifiers so the volume is nice and even across all channels? 
4) Do you have any suggestion for an entry level tube amp that matches the Olympicas well? 

Thanks!

-Al 

allforwill
Good advice here on testing to see how much power is needed, and as well, alternatively keeping Flicks and mucic separate if a tube amp for the mains is desired.

Based purely on content of the two formats, music and films, my question on this maneuver is why fix it if it ain’t broke, with respect to HT?

The proposal for using a tube amp to run the mains, depends on the Anthem’s ability to pass ALL signals digital or analog to a secondary zone. Most all procs will pass analog but not digital to zones other than the main one.

If your streaming is analog prior to the Anthem, you are in a less complicated scenario.

Regardless, if you proceed with throwing in a tube amp, merely reconfiguring the mains speaker cables from what ever amp to the Tube amp and perhaps a touch of altering the levels on the Anthem is all that ot be necessary for tube amp enjoyment. This is, of course with the caveat you have a tube amp capable or maybe better said, compatible with the SF speakers needs.

True too, you may find as Atma said, you might not need all 200w the HT amp is developing, to satisfy your speakers needs. 60w glass amp is as good a place to start as any, albeit there may be more contestants up around 75 to 100 in push pull affairs available. So, hide and watch the listings for what’s what in tube power amps and costs, or dive right on in.

Good luck.


I ran my home theatre for awhile with my main system tube amp (CJ Premier 11a, 70 wpc) and it runs my 4 ohm 92 dB efficient speakers with no problem, but I eventually decided that I didn't want to use up hard to replace tubes with video so added another power amp for video only.

You need to either swap the speaker cables over when going from one form of entertainment to the other or get a switching box that handles 4 channels back and forth between two power amps.


Thank you all for your input! I eventually got the Bottlehead Kaiju into my system do drive the mains and even with only 8watt/channel it got plenty loud and still crystal clear for music. Unfortunately, even after tinkering with the levels on the Anthem, it still didn't have the right dynamics for movies. So right now I've got it running through Zone 2 on the Anthem for music only, and movies are still through SS. 
I have not, I was assuming (maybe incorrectly...) that the combination of tube pre and SS amp - as was previously suggested - would be superior. What would be the pros and cons of a hybrid?