Tube or solid state amp or amps?

Good post Phd, but I much prefer to build a system around a preamp and speakers. And only a half a dozen preamps out there cut it for me vs. so many many great TT's, CDP's and amps. It all starts with a tube preamp.

Phd: Yes, I did indeed get off topic here. Sorry about that.

Bostonjim46: Congrats on the JL1's. I run with the JL-3's and discovered a greater degree of fullness and textures in the mids when I changed out the stock small-signal tubes. The Mullard 6922 and 12ax7 made a huge improvement not only in the portrayal of space but also dynamics. The latter is a Mullard strength. The Telefunken 12au7 over the stock 12au7 was a very slight improvement in the clarity of the mids. I have since discovered the Telefunken 6DJ8 which is absolutely magical every place I have tried it. But I have not yet had the chance to try this with the JL-3's. So try to locate some of these and discover even more with the CAT amps.

Andrewdoan: I have been to many rock and jazz concerts and so often the bass is boomy, the amplification used by the facility is terrible, and its downright impossible to hear clearly what the singer is singing and/or saying. If I want great sound quality, I am pretty much limited to the smaller venues or the great orchestra halls. The places we hear our favorite bands is not even remotely close sonically to where the studio recording was made that we listen to in our homes.

I go to a concert simply for the opportunity to see my favorite musicians. It's an issue of having fun; the ultimate sound quality is not a factor here.

As for the issue of one's tube gear causing major colorations, the recording engineers had far more to do with altering the sound than any tube-based home system playing that altered recording.

Andrewdoan: I have no experience with your specific speakers so I am not at all qualified to suggest what amp may be the "best". I dislike using the word "best" here because there really is no such thing as best. We all have different sonic attributes that are higher priorities than others. And ultimately, we are assembling a system. What may have worked before might not after other system changes.

If you notice my comment above, I am a fan of tube preamps first. But the problem here is that so very few tube preamps bring on the sonic qualities that for me is the whole purpose of running with tubes. And tube gear can be a major pain with tube replacement and the related costs, more heat into the room (a good thing here in Minnesota in the winter) and often greater reliability problems.

Besides the obvious benefits of the great tube products out there, having such components does allow the user to tune the sound to their own liking. My DAC, phono stage, line stage and amps all use 12ax7 and 6DJ8/6922 tubes, as well as a host of other tube types. And one thing I have been able to do is try the various tubes I mentioned before to optimize the sound to my liking. Choosing different brands/models can bring on greater dynamic contrasts or shift the tonality to bring on a greater overall system tonal coherency, etc. This is obviously not something I can do with solid state components. Cable swaps allow for some such sonic changes, but I find that often to gain one major improvement with a cable change, I lose something else that I do not want to give up....unless I really pay a fortune for another cable altogether. At $50-100 a pair for many of these tubes, I can take my system to a whole new level for $1000 that no cable nor other component change of this price can even begin to match.

Recently I dropped in a pair of Telefunken 6DJ8 tubes in the Aesthetix Io and another pair in the Callisto. With these two pairs, I got a sonic improvement over the Mullard gold pin 6922 that exceeded component upgrades I made in the past that costed far more money. And I like the Mullards very much. But the Tele's here are phenomenol in these two products.

Have you noticed the cost to upgrade to the next level of a solid state amp or preamp? It's typically going to cost at least $1000 to move up to gain a worthwhile improevement. A pair of $100 tubes can do the same in many cases.

One final thing on amps and speakers. These really go together as some amps only work well within a certain load impedance. And many speakers require a lot of current to start to perform to their potential. I like to listen to many speakers to find one that stands out from the crowd for me. Then I go through the same exercise to find an amp that brings out that speaker's strengths that caused me to buy that speaker. And only the owner of that speaker can make that final determination.

What made you choose Energy Veritas 2.4 speaker? Surely there are some sonic attributes that caught your attention. Once you identify what these are, then you can audition amps that are reported to excel in the same regard.....as long as those amps can handle the speakers' load.

John