Whats the FATTEST sounding Tube amp to warm up Lean speakers?


What would you say is the fattest, warmest fullest sounding Tube amp to fatten up
Merlin VSM's?

They are 8 ohm, and easy to drive. 30wpc would do.

From my understanding, through reading here, the Famous match with AtmaSphere s30 actually doubles up on the natural detailed and spacious yet lean character of the Merlins.

Which Amp would do the opposite - be a little forgiving and sweet in the higher mids and fatter and fuller in the lower mids?

Thanks
dumbeat

Showing 3 responses by signaturesound

@xti16 All Joule-Electra power amplifiers (excluding the very few hybrid integrated amps Joule made which were solid state ouput) used the Russian 6C33 output tube. Most all were made in the Soviet era IIRC.

Rich
@xti16 Nothing wrong with sharing your impressions! Lots of nice 6550/KT88 tubes (new and old) types to chose from - I hear some of the new production (reproduction?) stuff being made today is quite good.:-)

With the 6C33 all we got are those tubes mostly made in the Soviet era by a few different facilities in Russia... fortunately its a pretty good souding tube (IMO) in general, so the best bet for tube rolling in a Joule amp are the front end tubes (6922, 5751, 6350)

Rich
@tzh21y CAT amps do sound great with Merlins. I have heard the combo several times (Merlin and CAT demo’d Together at shows HiFi shows in the mid 2000’s) and I know of at least one VSM owner off the top of my head who has CAT amp on his Merlins.

Joule Electra OTLs also sound pretty darn great on Merlins too (you are right @nightfall certainly not lean) :-) I know there are plenty of folks out there still using Joule gear on Merlins.

Rich