Tube Amps for Revel Salons

Too much money to spend and too much tubes to roll on 250+wpc tube amps. They will use at least 6 tubes per channel. Becides you will not hear best of them with any tubes.

Marakanetz, thanks for the advice. It sounds like if I want to go to tubes, I should plan on swapping speakers too.

If I loved my speakers, I would match for them an amp weather it's tube or SS. Swapping speakers just to switch to tubes isn't my bowl of soup.

VTL 450 would work or even possibly BAT 150SE I've owned both and I think they give just as much punch as solid state with lots of power. I don't think either will give the classic warm tube sound but they do sound good. If you can say for sure that you love your speakers I wouldn't switch those it is way easier to try a different amp if you are looking for a new flavor. Personally I don't think the heat and cost is worth it for tubes. There's a lot of great sounding solid state amps out there these days. What are you using now?

I'm currently using Stellavox PW1's (200W) which drive them very well.

What about ARC Reference 150? I'm not really looking for the classic warm tube sound. I'm looking more for the smooth pleasing tube sound.

Any solid state amps you would recommend to get a smooth sound (no solid state harshness)?

Checkout Carver Cherry 180's or Black Beauty. 180's can drive MBL 101e MK11 without issues ... has a 2 ohm tap.

Look into Parasound JC1's.

Those who can't either afford to maintain large power tube amps or just don't want hassle with rolling of 12 tubes or more or simply can't drive demanding speakers with any tube power enjoy performance of McIntosh solid state amps that sound very similar to tube ones.
If you research large macs such as MC352 and higher power models, I guess you find for yourself the best match. Mate it with matching tube preamps and your system will be no compromise to the BAT VK150se or VTL450(how many tubes are there???)

Let me give you an inexpensive option. I am currently running this package and I'm very happy with it. Prima Luna mono blocks on the top of the Salon's and a solid state amp on the bottom. I tie the two together with a dbx driverack that has been adjusted using rta and microphone. I was switching back and forth between SS and tubes depending on what music I was listening too that evening. I grabbed my driverack from my pa gear just for grins to see how it would sound using it as a crossover and never took it out of the system. That was my experience. The driverack used you can buy for about 200-300 depending on what series. Hope this gives you some food for thought. I now have the wonderful mids of tubes with the power and punch of solid state.

I use the Rogue M-180 monoblocks with KT 120 output tubes to drive Martin Logan Summits electrostats which are a notoriously difficult load and I love the results. Definitely not to tubey, made in America and not to expensive.

We have a customer with a set of MA-1s that raves about the combination. I would have expected that he would have needed more power but that does not seem to be the case.

I'm very satisfied with a pair of Carver VTA 180 mono's driving my Avalon Eidolons. More than enough power with solid full bass and a luscious presentation. American made point to point wiring, no wire boards or crimp connectors. Easy to bias the six cool running tubes per mono with a seven year transferable warrantee.

I would recommend the parasound JC-1s they are nice sounding they do out off some heat which is why I got rid of mine but they sound pretty great for their low-ish price. Or a pass x350.5 would be nice as well

I drive my salon 2's with a NAD M2. I do not get much bottom end extension though the highs and mids are smooth with good PCM data fed via coaxial input. NAD is rated 250WPC at 8 ohms.

PDog, I forgot to mention that Jeff Rowland uses the Salon 2 in one of their listening rooms. There's lost of decent solid state designs. Rowland's work has a little something that I never fail to hear even in the most ridiculous circumstances.

The best way to have your cake and eat it too is to bi-amp. Solid state on the bass, tubes on mids and highs, I have heard this with several different Revels and it sounds fantastic. Arc ref 150 would work very well as a mid/high amp on the Salons. any older Classe or bryston amp or amps would work well for the bass, get yourself a DS speaker digital EQ/pre amp to put between your bass amp and pre-amp and you can get digital eq from 500 hertz on down, and solid state control. Bi amping this way will take your Revels to a new level, far more open and dynamic, more like real music.

Well they do have bi-amp possibilities. I actuall inquired with Harman about an active crossover but didn't get much help. The manual mentions that identical signals need to be sent to both upper and lower speaker jacks but may mean identical gain.
Otherwise it seems like a great speaker to bi-amp with an active crossover. High powered solid state is relatively cheap for the bottom and would put your tubes to good use on the top.
Would be very interested as to what you decide. BTW, I'm very interested in a pair of Salon 2s but like you have questions about the amps.

Without adequate power you will not be able to get the best from these speakers. With my NAD 2 I get decent sound, but looses composure and control. I personally think a pure Class A Pass Labs Amp or similar would be the way to go.

My revel salons are imposing, but with their Grills off and Mahogany finish, they are simply gorgeous.

Any one having experience of driving Revel Salon 2 speakers with Rogue Audio Apollo tube monoblocks (at 250W each)? How well?

https://www.highperformancestereo.com/power-amplifiers/balanced-audio-technology-vk-500-amplifier-with-bat-pack.html

prairiedog
I’m thinking of going back to tube amps. I would either have to sell my first generation Revel Salons or find a suitablr tube amp that works well with them.

The Revels at 87db you need a quality >150w tube amp that has a quality output transformer with 4ohm and/or even 2ohm output transformer taps, that should do the job and will get good bass out of them, the brute'ish Audio Research’s come to mind.

But forget about getting down to anywhere near 20hz as the -50% phase angle combined with the 3ohms load will curtail the amp from giving those frequencies.
https://www.stereophile.com/images/archivesart/Salfig1.jpg

Cheers George

I’m using a pair of Denafrips Thallo amps in vertical passive bi-amp mode with my 2024 Salon2s and they work very well. They have plenty of headroom for me but I only listen at about 85dB.

I was previously using a Krell KSA 300s and although more powerful, I don’t notice any drop off in performance.

The Salon2s with the matching Rhythm2 sub produce exceptionally smooth bass in my room.