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Recommendations please. I am looking for a tube integrated that is a synergistic match for the Sonus Guarneri speakers (preferably for less than $3500). I would also love to hear from somone who has auditioned the ASL Leyla, Audiomat Arpege or Manley Stinray with this speaker.
Follow Ups:
If you can, try the Audiomat Prelude or Solfege, the middle and top of their line of push-pull tube integrateds. I know the latter uses 6550's, not sure about the Prelude. Audiomat claims that as you move from the Arpege (EL 34's) to the Prelude and then on to the Solfege, the presentation gets less forgiving, more accurate. They also get bigger power supplies. I've heard the Arpege and will hear the Solfege in a week or so. Based on what I heard of the Arpege, I think you might be very pleased. As a dark horse, I'd like to hear VTL 250 triode monoblocks.
Anyone with first hand experiense on this compination?
I use the Guarneri with a Cary CAD 300 SEI and a Jeff Rowland Concentra, both with great satisfaction. Hyperion is right, Chamber music is wonderful with these speakers.
The Pathos Twin Towers comes to mind .... tube input stage, solid state output stage. Very extended top end with GREAT bass. One of the best integrateds on the market IMO, but not widely discussed (or marketed by the distributor, at least in the USA).I have never heard the Guarneri's but I do own the Pathos TT and love it. If anyone has heard this set-up, please comment.
Jeff
I have a pathos TT and love the SF Guarneri's. I have heard the combination and liked it a lot. The bass might be slightly to lean (To well controlled)for the Guaneri but different valves might do the trick. It is really a very good combination, It also look the part.I would bi wire with something like the VD Hull revelation at the bottom and a good silver at the top.
regards
stefan
Most of the small tubed integrated amps (approx 30W up) can be used with Guarneri particulary if your thing is mainly small scale music (thats what the Guarneri excels in anyway). The thing is most of those amps also use 4 EL34 or EL84 or some other small tube that are good in the mid/highs but can have a lightweight bass as well. There is no general consensus as to what small integrated amp is best but I have correspondence who use as low as 8wpc Air Tight 300B, to 15Wpc or so Audio Note OTOSE, to 25Wpc Graaf Veintecinque to 40Wpc CJ CAV50 etc. I'm sure any of the amps you listed is a good candidate for the Guarneri.
I tried the Manley Stingray, it was fine. Not up to the quality of the speakers, however. One always hesitates to criticize Hyperion, our resident SF guru, but I found the Guaneri quite difficult to drive correctly. While they can play with lower wattage integrateds, they don't perform their best with 10 watt tube amps. I tried, for example, Electraprint 300Bs...a dozen watts or so, I believe...and they sounded wimpy and coarse when driven to my preferred listening volumes (somewhat loud.) Even the BelCanto 40i pooped out...I had to use the highest setting (88 on the digital readout ) for much music. It through a terrific soundstage, but was very noisy and hummed badly. The Tigris and the Mesa Baron (EL 34,) the latter in "0" feedback, full triode, both sounded excellent. For budget-minded, both were superior to the BelCanto and Manley units. I wish I had gotten a chance to hear the TT, but I did have an email correspondence with one who tried that combo, and from what I remember he found the top end to be too sterile for these speakers. He did like the unit on other speakers, and I have no doubt that it is a fine unit. He ended up using, by the way, a Graaf OTL...also an Italian unit. Now, for something out of leftfield, my favorite integrated (I bought one I like it so much...and I am a tube afficianado) on the Guarneri was Sonus Faber's own integrated, the Musica. It is extremely good, well-matched or voiced, to the Guarneri. It is surprisingly powerful, for example, to achieve the same volume as the BelCanto full out I only had to turn the pot on the Musica to 12 o'clock! It is very warm sounding, so much so that my friends used to look inside the vented cage on top to see if there were any tubes hiding inside! Plus, its absolutely gorgeous, uses very high quality parts, ran completely cool, and was very inexpensive. (Along this line, I notice that JP trading...from Italy...is selling a beautiful vintage SF amp and preamp that would fit nicely in your budget.)
It all depends on how you like your music and how suitable it is for the Guarneris. Which is why there is a big variety of amplifiers that can be used with it, and there is no consensus even among Guarneri fans as to which kind of amp really sings well with it. Folks who want the most powerful bass (not necessarily best quality bass mind you) coming out of the Guarneris invariably use high power ss amps with it, while others who want the sweetest vocals ended up using low power triodes. Folks who want a bit of bass and good vocals ended up with something in between ...I only answered the question brought forth to my attention - he wants small tubed integrated amps so I just listed some of that kind of stuff that other Guarneri owners use.
Recommending ss stuff would be totally insincere for me as I would not personally go that way. Maybe if those Halcros were as good as what they say, and it's only 1/2 or 1/3 its price ...
My personal choice, if I own Guarneris would probably be a gutsy sounding SET amp like those Audio Art Jota, or an even mannered ultralinear pp amp not unlike my CJ Premier 11a (or 12), or perhaps those Wolcott Presence monoblocks. I might try the Tenor OTL stuff too but I honestly think that they are too expensive as anything about $10K usually is.
From my perspective, the Mesa Baron in all triode, zero feedback mode sound too soggy and soft with mediocre resolution and smallish soundstage. Pianos sound rubbery and kick drums lack punch etc. My preferred setting for it is 2/3 pentode, 1/3 triode, and zero feedback but even then, I felt there is something wrong with the Baron's dynamic contrast. Music sounded compressed and shackled with it. That should give you some idea on what kind of tubehead I am. :)
As I said before, I have no problem with the Musica's tonality. I confess I like its refined sound, not to mention its warm and sweet disposition. My beef with it is in terms of fine dynamic and temporal gradation, as is my beef with all ss amps that I have heard.
HI Celluloid
Thanks for sharing your experience with these combinations. It sounds to me like it would require big dollars to significantly improve on the sonic performance of the SF Musica with the Guarneri. Although I generally gravitate toward the sound of tubes the sound of music is my goal. I will listen carefully to the Musica amp.
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