Tube Amps with Balanced Inputs

Mcfarland,

Thanks for the tip. I'll take a look.

Ghostrider,

Ah, I hadn't thought of that. I'm running long interconnects to the amps, and it seems running balanced from the preamp to the amps is considerably less noisy than with a single-ended connection.

Jax,

Thanks for the tip. I don't know anything about their amps, but the price is certainl right. Basically, I'm currently using AES (Cary) Sixpac Amps (with KT-66 tubes), and just switched to Zu Tone speakers, which are very sensitive (claimed 101db). I'm using a BAT VK-5i, which is a balanced preamp, and thought of switching amps to try to get that SET magic I keep reading about. I really want to stay fully balanced, which was the reason for my post to begin with.

You mentioned that these sound close to SET amps. What amps have you compared them to?

- Stew

I got it, thanks.

Thanks much Marco for all the info. Based on that and other research I've done, I just purchased a pair of Mono 10's from someone here on Audiogon. I'm using Zu Tone speakers with a claimed 101db sensitivity, so hope that there will be enough power (I sometimes do enjoy listening at fairly high levels). These amps do seem like a good choice, since they seem to have a combination of some of the SET qualities, and are balanced in design, so I can run my long balanced interconnects without adding noise.

Thanks again for the suggestion...

- Stew