Suggestions?

[cestlavie]

I'm getting my ascends delivered pretty sometime next week, but I've been thinking, I would really like to have a tube amp. Problem is price, maintence, and technical expertise required with those things, but I heard the sound once in a little store in taiwan and man, it's something I couldn't stop thinking about.

My price range is something like 1-600 bucks new or used
it would be powering CMT-340s, probably just my two fronts, would this make it sound really strange for movies, cause no way I can afford tubes all around.

Some amps I have looked at:
EBAY used
Antique sound labs Wave-8
Antique sound labs Wave-dt

Direct - new
Nohr SE-9
http://www.norh.com/products/se9/index.html

If some stocks work out for me....Maybe a
Nohr SE-18
http://www.norh.com/products/se18/index.html

Suggestions in that price range? I saw quicksilver mini monoblocks for around 700 used, and a few other strange ones I'm guessing are OEM from China.

I would prefer autobiasing since I have no clue how to manage that, and a low maintence type of amp, with easily replaceable parts.

Hoping to find some answers since you guys are the most familiar with ascend speakers and could probably suggest the best match, but I understand it's not something most people go into nowadays.

TIA regardless,
C'est

[Mag_Neato]

av123 sells some tube gear......not super expensive as tube stuff goes. You may even find some B-stock.

[curtis]

Quinn and I heard the CBM-170 on the inexpensive AV123 tube amp in Austin....didn't sound special to me.

We also heard the CBM-170 and CMT-340 on some pretty expensive stuff as well....now that made a difference. I don't remember the name of the equipment though...but it was REAL expensive.

[bikeman]

I just got back from four day of listening to $30k worth of tube gear. It was nice. I won't be trading in my SS gear anytime soon.

David

[Eddie Horton]

Jolida makes some affordable tube gear. You could check them out.

[cestlavie]

Thanks for the help guys

Yeah I think I get what you mean curtis, if the speaker is really good, it doesn't exactly need the boost to the midrange that usually comes with tubes. However, did you feel the sound was at least warmed up? I can't explain it any other way, but the tubes give a warmer fuller sound.

[curtis]

I think tube setups do different things to different speakers.

My thinking is, feed the speaker a signal that is as unchanged as possible.....don't add anything or take anything away.

Ofcourse, what an "unchanged" signal is can be left up to interpretation.

[cestlavie]

Yeah true, in regards to computers though it's pretty easy, ASIO allows for playback that passes through the resamplers, and the difference is clear. Still maybe it's all in my head, but I love the tube sound. It was the smallest little amplifier and it was powering some very ghetto boombox like speakers, but man did it sound good.

Thanks,
C'est

[jimsiff]

Decware makes nice SET tube amps, but their low end is almost $700. I'd say that one of their $675 Zen amps wouldn't be enough given that it's rated at 5 wpc and 2 wpc RMS. A pair of monoblocks or one of their TORII integrated amps would drive the Ascends nicely. You might check Audiogon for used tube gear.

[Quinn]

Quinn and I heard the CBM-170 on the inexpensive AV123 tube amp in Austin....didn't sound special to me.

We also heard the CBM-170 and CMT-340 on some pretty expensive stuff as well....now that made a difference. I don't remember the name of the equipment though...but it was REAL expensive.

Granite Audio(>$10K) but we never hooked up the Ascends to it. We only tried that guy's Audio Refinement Complete stuff which is SS with the Ascends. But it did sound great with vinyl with his J.M. Reynaud Offrande speakers and Nottingham TT.