Moving from SS to tube system

Lvb,
I would have to say that my Cary 300b's are neutral and well-extended in the treble and not dull at all. It may of course be a relative thing, if you're used to bright and edgy solid state perhaps you might think the treble dull, but even then I doubt it. In the end though the best advice, as always, is to listen for yourself. Good luck!

After doing some on-line research, I think I can narrow down to these: Rogue Magnum M120 and AES Sixpacs.

Any thoughts?

I had the 120's for two years, and was very happy with them. I did not experience any heat issues (I live in Miami) other than when the amps were new. You can run them with 6550's, KT88's, KT90's and el34 so there's plenty of opportunity for tube rollin'.

They provided plenty of power (~90 dB speakers). A plus for the Rogues is that if you like them you can always send them in to Rogue for upgrade to 150's, as I did.

Another plus, and not one to be undervalued, is the excellent support you will receive from Mark'O and Mark W.

KP

A few words regarding the AES Sixpacs... it is true that the EL34 tubes promote the mids, however, I have to believe there is some system/room dependency that accentuate the frequency extreems, not to mention personal taste (this is why home auditions are absolute key). Personally, I couldn't be happier with my highs in my system using the Sixpacs (with upgraded EH EL34s). Cymbals sound "life-like", I can hear the "tap" of the drumstick to the cymbal before I hear the cymbal. Just a few thought to try to help, good luck.

I have not (yet) been able to do a head-to-head comparison of the Rogue M-120s and the AES Sixpacs. However, I have listened to both amps with essentially the same supporting hardware, and could give some general impressions, but without a side-by-side comparison, I don't know how fair it would be. A shoot-out will occur - I just don't know when.

My friend's M-120s were a bit noisy, but once he replaced a single fuse and cleaned the pins of his tubes, they were dead silent. My Sixpacs are silent as well (with a minimum transformer hum - you have to have your ear up to the speaker to hear it).

The M-120s are only rated as 60 watt amps when run in triode mode, but will really throw close to 100 watts (the sixpacs are only capable of running in triode mode). Trust me, you'll want to run the M-120s in only triode mode. Both amps have a tremendous amount of reserve bandwidth. So while the M-120s is capable of more power, after listening to them, I doubt if you'll use it.

The 50 watt rating of the sixpacs may sound tiny (coming from a 200 watt solid state setup, I know it did for me) but I doubt if you will be disappointed. Even when blasting Rage Against the Machine at excessively loud volumes, I stand in disbelieve that these amps are rocking so hard.

Personally, I don't think you can lose with either choice. Mark O'Brian (Rogue) provides excellent support. I absolutely love my AES hardware (and Kevin Deal @ upscaleaudio.com - my dealer has been great to work with).

While I think the Rogue hardware looks cooler, given the chance, I'd buy the AES hardware again. But then again, my friend who owns the Rogue hardware would probably say the same thing about his Rogue gear.

Check out my system description for more of my opinions on my AES hardware.