Hello everyone, I bought my tubes stereo system about 15 yrs ago, BW804N, Cary 805 monoblock amps, Cary SLP98P, Rega CD player. Now I have more time, and would like to buy new tubes system. On the list, BW803 D3, Cary CAD211 FE, bought VPI prime turntable, may keep SLP98P or sell/trade to newest Cary SLP98P. My room is 13W x 23L x 10H. Any feedback, please post. Thanks.
Cary is a respected manufacturer and offers repair as well as upgrades. Why don't you call them to see if your amp can be updated? Though if you get the B&W you probably need more power, especially with the 3ohm minimum. If you are looking for something different, I can unequivocally recommend Atma-Sphere amps. Bob
Dennis Had is no longer part of Cary and I would suggest searching the threads for customer experiences in the last few years. My vague impression is that some here posted disatisfaction with either the newer team/support or the newer gear.
Agree w/posts that if you move up to the bigger B&Ws that those 211s might not be powerful enough to be a good match. I'd at least find some B&Ws who can confirm good results w/similar amps. 211s, 845s etc. can sound great, but they prefer a fairly efficient speaker with a relatively flat impedance curve ~8ohms+ in general. If somebody uses them with lower impedance speakers and gets good results, that would be good to post about. Cheers, Spencer
B&Ws are traditionally not tube-friendly speakers. IME, a fair bit of performance of the tube equipment in use in this system already is left on the table on account of the speakers being harder to drive.
When shopping for speakers, look at what the manufacturer uses. You don't have a lot of power here, so you want a speaker that doesn't need much. Eight ohms would be the least impedance (particularly in the bass region- stay away from speakers that have dual woofers unless you know that the combo of woofers is 8 ohms or more) and the efficiency should be at least 92 db in most rooms (if a small room less efficiency might work).
* Four separate chassis: 2 monaural amplifiers, each with its own separate external power supply. * 150 watts into 8 ohms * True balanced topology * Tube input stage (two 6922's), Blue Circle's new solid state output stage
My dealer has got in touch with me to say that there was a fault with the ZOTL 40 I auditioned, so take my comment above with a grain of salt. Apparently there was a problem with the mono switch causing low power output.
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