Tubes and MLs

[longhorn]

Anyone here using tubes on their MLs? Are you missing High Frequency details? The reason I asked,after reading that the new Summit goes down to .7 Ohms at 20K,there cannot be an Tube amp out there (except the vaunted VTL Wotan) that could handle such a load. Am I wrong?

And do Tube amps really have a more expansive soundstage than solid state, or again,an urban hi-end myth.

By the way,I have had the priviledge of hearing Audio Research and VTL. Beautiful music,just not sure they can handle difficult loads.

 

[Spike]

Anyone here using tubes on their MLs? Are you missing High Frequency details? The reason I asked,after reading that the new Summit goes down to .7 Ohms at 20K,there cannot be an Tube amp out there (except the vaunted VTL Wotan) that could handle such a load. Am I wrong?

Theoretically, if there are lots of energy at that frequency extreme, the tube amplifier may not handle it, BUT in practicality, there is little energy at that frequency range posing no problem with tube amp for ML.

And do Tube amps really have a more expansive soundstage than solid state, or again,an urban hi-end myth.

Yes, you do get a more expansive soundstage, width and depth wise giving you a more 3-D, layered presentation.

By the way,I have had the priviledge of hearing Audio Research and VTL. Beautiful music,just not sure they can handle difficult load.

I'm VERY happy with my AES SixPacs powering my ML reQuests!

_Spike

 

[risabet]

I'm a new M-L owner but a long time audio nut, IMO, you can get about 70% or so of the tube sound, and they do have a sound, with a tube pre-amp and a SS amp. On the other hand, there is a magic to a good tube amp that is hard to resist. The load of the Summit shouldn't present a problem with any well designed amp because unless you listen to test tones there is so little energy way up there that is shouldn't matter.

 

[longhorn]

Thanks Risabet,I had heard the same thing about getting a tube preamp to get the good effects of tubes. Problem is,I do not want "warm" sounding music,I want real music with plenty of definition and with a wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide sound stage. Audio Research claims to have such an effect without the warmness say of CJ gear. Is it true? Any AR customers here? The many times I have heard AR gear its on dynamic speakers not stats.

Thank you again for your comments,please keep them coming.

 

[jjqiv]

Thanks Risabet,I had heard the same thing about getting a tube preamp to get the good effects of tubes. Problem is,I do not want "warm" sounding music,I want real music with plenty of definition and with a wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide sound stage. Audio Research claims to have such an effect without the warmness say of CJ gear. Is it true? Any AR customers here? The many times I have heard AR gear its on dynamic speakers not stats.

Thank you again for your comments,please keep them coming.

If you want real sounding music, you can not beat a good tube amp. Quality tube amps, like a good vinyl front-end and recording, have a more organic sound. They reproduce more natural tone and harmonics. They have a lower noise floor (i.e., allow you to hear more subtle details). A good tube amp will give a wide sound stage and allow you the hear the wall and accoustics of the recording venue. A good tube amp will sound warm when the sound should be warm. It should allow bit when the recording want you to be bitten (e.g., an atonal sax squawk).

There are some good ss amps that sound very good (Edge, SimAudio, Pass, etc). You know what they say, close but no cigar. Unfortunately, I'm still close, some day I will have my cigar (have an AR LS2B tube pre and a modded tube phono EAR 834P with a SS 8008X5 Aragon amp). A couple weeks ago I listened to a Pass and Nagra back-to-back with same front-end and speakers. Boy, did the Nagra sound good!

 

[Spike]

Thanks Risabet,I had heard the same thing about getting a tube preamp to get the good effects of tubes. Problem is,I do not want "warm" sounding music,I want real music with plenty of definition and with a wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide sound stage. Audio Research claims to have such an effect without the warmness say of CJ gear. Is it true? Any AR customers here? The many times I have heard AR gear its on dynamic speakers not stats.

Thank you again for your comments,please keep them coming.

From my experience, ARC & CJ are on opposite sides of the spectrum. To me, ARC is on the high-resolution (hi-fi) side, with the typical "thin, sterile" sound. My comments are regarding the ARC VT (100 & 200) series in my system, I have not heard the newer VS series. CJ as you've mentioned, is on the "romantic" side, with the liquidy smooth mids. I found the CJ to be on the "slow, sluggish" side when pace is considered. If your goal is a neutral sounding amplifier, I'd suggest BAT tube amps, Cary V12R (or the "little" cousins AES 6Pacs). All of the above metioned amps are more than capable to handle the ML loads.

Spike

 

[Jeremy W Porter]

What about a good tube amp that will push Prodigy's hard? I thought about the Wolcott's and others that are reasonable?

JWP

 

[Spike]

What about a good tube amp that will push Prodigy's hard? I thought about the Wolcott's and others that are reasonable?

JWP

BAT vk60/75 monoblocs (aka vk120 or vk150). Cary V12R monoblocs should do the job. How hard do you want to push these Prodigies? Why not bi-amp with solid-state amps on the bass, tube on the panels?

 

[pat17]

If you want real sounding music, you can not beat a good tube amp. Quality tube amps, like a good vinyl front-end and recording, have a more organic sound. They reproduce more natural tone and harmonics. They have a lower noise floor (i.e., allow you to hear more subtle details). A good tube amp will give a wide sound stage and allow you the hear the wall and accoustics of the recording venue. A good tube amp will sound warm when the sound should be warm. It should allow bit when the recording want you to be bitten (e.g., an atonal sax squawk).

Quite right. I had a home demo once of Italian made Unison Research S8 on my Claritys

It was just wonderful... Being back to my solid state amps after it was over was difficult - it just seemed that this sound that had awakened up during a couple of hours falled asleep again. I then decided to go to other solid state amp for practical reasons - climate in the UAE is not very easy to bear for delicate electronic equipment - but I still have this fugitive emotion coming from that demo in mind...

 

[CABLEGUY]

Hi!

We demonstrated Odessey with tubes from Cayin at latest "HI-FI HIGH-END" exhibition in Odense, Denmark (17:th of October 2004). We used the preamp SC8-LS with two 9088D monoblocks. It works really well!!!

Here is some pictures from the show:

http://cableguy.se/gallery

Regards, Per-Anders.

 

[zaphod]

i drove my logos with a mc-60 for quite a while. sounded great.

just (and i'm embarressed to admit this) turned out to be too much for me to remember to turn it on, for movies so i kept missing the first few sentances until i jogged over and turned on the amp.

so i replaced the mc60 with a meitner. the mc60 now drives a esl-57. very classic.

 

[risabet]

Thanks Risabet,I had heard the same thing about getting a tube preamp to get the good effects of tubes. Problem is,I do not want "warm" sounding music,I want real music with plenty of definition and with a wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide sound stage. Audio Research claims to have such an effect without the warmness say of CJ gear. Is it true? Any AR customers here? The many times I have heard AR gear its on dynamic speakers not stats.

Thank you again for your comments,please keep them coming.

Did I write that tubes were warm sounding? I wrote thay had a sound, as does every component. To me the sound of tubes is more consonant with the sound of unamplified instruments playing in an acoustic space , an absolute reference? That said, I run a SS amp in my system, though I am looking at some tube units.

Early CJ was warmer than the AR gear, I'm not sure if that is still true.
As far as choices go BAT comes to mind, as does VTL, and Rogue Audio. As to soundstaging the C-J gear is probably mind blowing if they still make 'em like they used to.

My experience is that modern tube gear is very detailed without etch or stridency, it is very revealing of the components upstream of it and serves the music well. A good tube amp may be just the thing you're looking for.

 

[aliveatfive]

I've used two different tube amps on ML Sequel IIs amd Ascent is. Both were AR. First one was a Classic 60 (60 watts per side) and the second was a VT 100 III. I was never satisfied with the sound of the 60. It didn't have the power to make the Logans sing. The VT was a much more satisfying match. However, it took a long, long time (close to a year) to fully break in and rid itself of that "thin" quality some have mentioned. Two different preamps were used during the time these amps were installed. They were also both tubed. One was the AR LS22 and the other was a BAT VK51SE. The BAT was very much superior.

 

[rciubuc]

I use ARC LS16 as pre and CJ premier 11a to drive ascentsi and depht sub to excellent results. The stats have a tendency to sound a little bit to unnatural side when mached with SS, more bright and edgy. I compare the sound with natural, acoustic , unamplified instruments, so people listening to life rock will prefer the ML with SS, but I found them unpleasent for long listening periods. If you decide on SS I found Linn products as a good match.

 

[boneman]

Power into low impedances

The reason you'll find ML's having rolled off treble performance with tubed amplifiers is the amp's inability to produce consistent output, ie full bandwidth, if the speaker impedance decreases. Audio Research amps generally show their rated power at 16 ohms.

My Monolith IIIx's have a nasty drop in impedance, down to 1 ohm or so, and my Audio Research amp was fine in all areas except at the top. I currently run the 'stat panels with a pair of VAC PA-160 mono amps which have 1-2 ohm taps and they do a better job on the top end.