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Tube amp recommendation

My current amp is dying and therefore I am in the market for a new amp. I got my current amp back in my university daze (solid state, over 10 years old and cheap). Perhaps I should have upgraded years ago, but it served me well and I was happy enough with it (and spent the money on records instead).

I have always been impressed by the sound that tube amps generate and hence believe that my current amp is giving me the push to go finally into the tube world. I have read various items on this website (and a few others) and have a bit of confusion (and hence some questions).

Now pieces of information about me...
1) I like to listen to large assortment of music (old skool reggae, bad electronic music, the occasional rock record, various jazz items, sometimes even hiphop). Often I listen to stuff in what seems like an random order.
2) I am rather lazy on my days off (when I listen to music most of the time).

With these two points I mean I don't really want to change a set of tubes because my music selection is a sometimes bit schizophrenic. I don't want to manually adjust bias settings every Saturday morning (occasionally fair enough).

Therefore, can anyone recommend any tube amps that are in the entry - mid level for me?
dennyc

Showing 2 responses by atmasphere

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,120 posts
 
FWIW if the amp is good, its good with rock, hip hop, electronic, classical- whatever.

Contrary to opinion above, the size of the woofer and the ability for the amp to control it really is a red herring. A small amp controls a big woofer just fine. But usually a small amp has less power- you're going to cause it to clip sooner. Some speakers are designed for the amp to have **lots** of loop negative feedback (IOW: transistor) and tube circuits, owing to increased linearity of tubes, often run less feedback, and in many cases, none at all.

This is a difference of design consideration and is not a matter of 'control'. See

http://www.atma-sphere.com/papers/paradigm_paper2.html

for more information.

If you want to get the most out of a tube amplifier, your tube amplifier investment dollar will be best served by a speaker that is 8 ohms or more. This is actually true of transistors as well, as long as your goal is sound quality and not raw sound pressure.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,120 posts
 
Hi Jax2, my point has to do with equipment matching. An SET driving a 92 db speaker is going to get clipped a lot if you listen to demanding musical passages. On a speaker like that, you would need a lot more power- 60 to 100 watts, in order to get to appropriate levels. There are not a lot of SETs that can do that, and IMO those that do don't sound very good. Lower power SETs really require a speaker 10 db more efficient than the ones you have/had; then you can play hip hop on them all day, but don't expect a lot of bass with a speaker that is that efficient! That's why those speakers we had at T.H.E. Show are such a nice deal, though they are anything but cheap :)

IOW if an amplifier is good, its good for any kind of music, perhaps a qualifier is needed- as long as it is being used with a speaker that matches that amplifier (whatever it is) properly. So I am saying that such an amp will play classical as well as any rock. The amp does not care what someone's taste is- its all electronic signals to an amp :)

To Raquel's comment about output transformers- I agree that better, more expensive transformers will do a better job with the bass on 4 ohms, but such an amplifier will still sound better on a speaker that is 8 ohms or more all other thing being equal. That comment I made about impedance relates to all amplifiers, even transistors, so long as sound quality is the goal. IMO, as soon as 4 ohms comes up, sound quality is no longer the goal. At that point its all about the amp being somehow more brutal or something. My experience with high end audio is that it is all about sound quality and to get that you need higher impedance speakers, regardless of the amplifier technology.
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