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Can you believe it? I am still in shock. I got them on audiogon just a week ago. I was the first bidder and actually flew to nashville to pick them up. I carried these 175 pound (each) behemoths back with a minivan and a 14 hour drive. Was worth every minute.Now I need an amp since my little 60 watt CJ MV60 doesnt quite cut it. As much as I hate to lose the sound of tubes, I think I may need to go solid state. Any recommendations for a good solid state amp? My price rage is 2-4K.
Follow Ups:
You might want to try an Edge amp. Using an Edge G-8 with my thiel CS2.2's turned them into an entirely different class of speaker.
Are supposed to mate very well with Thiels.I also know Kevin Hayes of VAC loves Thiels and tests his amps going out the door with some 3.6's. I'm betting he would have an amp that would work well. Might be worth a call.
Classe Audio CA-400, you'll be happy!!
Like Monarchy Audio SE250 or a Blue Circle amp.
> As much as I hate to lose the sound of tubes, I think I may need to go solid state <My sympathies are with you. God bless......
I'd look for a Melos amp. They are triode outputs which is superior to pentode/tetrode. The Stereo version was rated at 200 watts a channel. The monoblocks were rated at 400 watts. And the ratings were conservative. Plus the bandwidth was very broad. The later versions went out to 100khz, very wide for a transformer coupled tube amp. One of the original workers still maintains them out of Las Vegas.
Go ahead it’s ok it’s not gonna’ bite you as I’m using it to drive my Thiel 3.6 with a lot of power to spare.
Are you getting good dynamics and snappy bass? I spent three hours last night listening to a 60 watt tube amp with the SC6 and for many of my recordings the sound was amazing. But this is only usable at low to medium volumes. I can hear the amp choking on loud passasges ( Symphonies etc..) and anything with deep bass.My pre amp is a ARC LS2B, so I'll keep my eyes out for one of thoses monster tube amps. It may be a nice match.
Too bad ARC covered up all those pretty tubes. For me they are like candles in my listening room....
as sometimes I took the cover off and turned the lights off when listening with it. The amp looks like a little city on its own with all those tubes glowing it sorta add fuzzy and warm light ambience feelings to the room especially when I am listening to Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue vinyl.The sound in my room is excellent with excellent control on the bottom end with glorious midranges. The highs are a little forgiving than the new VT-200 amp. This is one of the reasons that it sounded so good when pairing it with Thiel speakers. As it will certainly, helps tame the metallic tweeters if the listening room happens to be on the live side. A friend of mine commented one night that the bass response he had heard from this tube amp was excellent with snappy trailing end and that from a guy who owns a Krell driving a Wilson Watt Puppy 6 and B&W 830 Signature speakers.
The downside is it uses a lot of tubes at 32 tubes altogether. So therefore, it uses a lot of electricity to run as well at 400 watts on standby mode and as much as 2000 watts when it is fully driven to its full capacity of 250 watts/channel. The good news is the amp is very stable so you only have to bias them when you replace the power tubes how often are that. Oh somewhere between 4-5 years of course depending on your listening habits.
Can you bi-amp the Thiel 6?You could use your CJ 60 for the mids and tweeter and use a SS amp for the bass driver.
I did that in my set up with a CJ CAV 50 and it made a huge imrpovements. Made my speakers sound "2 levels" better.
Thiels only have two speaker posts. You can't biamp them.I have considered buying another MV60 and having Conrad Johnson convert them into monoblocks. According to the folks on the tube asylum it wont work the way I had hoped.
Maybe you don't have to abandon tubes, just yet. I had Rogue Magnum 120 monoblocks to run my inefficient Vandy 3A sigs, and was quit happy with them. The Rogue company makes nice, somewhat powerful tube amplifiers [including a larger version of the monoblocks (the 150's, or for that matter, maybe a used Zeus)], and a used pair would easily fall into your price range. I haven't heard the Thiels with those amps, but they might be a nice fit for your beautiful speakers. I included a link to Rogue audio, for possible reference.
Regards, and I'm not a salesman
I've known about Rogue for some time. I'll have to keep them in mind.
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