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October 29, 2010 - 6:33pm
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Looking fmy first tube stereo amp.
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Look and see if you can get Jolida products where you are. If so, they have a little 20 watt integrated that is a real honey in your price range. Dared also has some stuff in your price range. Their VP-20 amps are a lot of fun and sound awesome. Cayin is a step up in price and quality, but might be just outside your budget. Worth the extra money if you can stretch.
I don't have the issue with me but, if someone can remember the brand and model of the small, budget tube amp Sam Tellig mentioned a few months ago, that might be a place to begin. He thought quite a bit of that amp.
Two things; first, transformers are of prime importance in a tube based power amplifier. Budget tubes will almost always mean you are sacrificing transformer quality as they are the most costly parts in the entire amp. This will first show up as a lightening of the bass in virtually every budget tube amp. The bass should still be musical but it will not have the punch of your solid state amplifier, you'll need to get out of the budget prices to change that. Second, along with the budget transformers will typically come a higher output impedance from a budget tube amp. This makes speaker matching far more critical than it would be with a budget transistor amplifier. To work well with a budget tube amp your speakers will need to be of a consistently high impedance with a stable impedance curve - eight Ohms average with a dip no lower than six Ohms. Loading a budget tube amp with speakers intended for the cheap watts of a solid state amp will cause frequency response swings which can make the system sound very top heavy or very dark. Neither would be a reflection of the amplifier's sound quality with a more suitable speaker.
Finally, your tube guitar amp screams because it's working into a speaker with a very high 96-100dB sensitivity. Look at the sensitivity spec for your current speakers, they are more likely than not 10-15dB lower in sensitivity. This represents a very dramatic shift downward in overall volume levels particularly when playing full range down to 20Hz and not the truncated response of a guitar amp (your guitar speaker probably doesn't have useable response beneath 85Hz). There are high sensitivity home audio speakers meant specifically for today's low wattage tube amplifiers, but your Missions and Celestions aren't really in that crowd. Don't expect the same results with home audio as you find in guitar amplifiers and speakers as the two are aiming for somewhat different results and working under opposite expectations. You probably expect your guitar amplifier and speaker to distort with some overdrive. This is unacceptable in home audio and in the end, forces the specs and design goals to shift in the more conservative direction for home audio. So comparing guitar amps/speakers to home audio amps/speakers has more dissimilarities than not.
http://forum.stereophile.com/forum/showf...e=0&fpart=1
http://www.symphonysound.com/articles/tubefriendly.html
http://www.goodsearch.com/search.aspx?source=goodshopbar&keywords=tube+friendly+loudspeakers
thanks for the reply guys, and the links.
i guess i have some saving to do before i venture in to the world of tube amps then. but im sure it will be worth it.
Check on the Jolida options from www.underwoodhifi.com A great line to start with and affordable and can be modded later by the Parts Connexxion.
The little Jolida 102B is one of the funnest audio products I've ever owned. It's fun because it sounds so much better than its price would suggest and is so responsive to tube rolling. The tubes are inexpensive and plentiful, both NOS and new issues. Stephen should consider this little gem as a budget component for his new review space. I'd rather listen to it than most sub $2000 amps I've had over the years.
Jolida makes a very fine amplifier. Here's a very nice used one for sale.
Jolida JD-502P 60w/ch Tube amp. $950 obo. Retails new for $1100.
http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampstube&1293841901&/Jolida-JD-502P-60-watt/ch-Powe
Mark
Thanks, Monty. I am curious about Jolida amps. They've always impressed me at hi-fi shows.
Hi, the part about how much your willing to spend seems to be cut off. So for the benefit of anyone else who may be researching this, and comes across this thread, allow me to suggest the Carvin TS100
http://www.carvinguitars.com/products/single.php?product=TS100
Its a stereo Tube Power amp. 50 Watts per channel or 100 watts bridged. V and T controls for each channel, uses 4 EL34,5881 or 6L6GC power tubes and 4 12AX7 driver tubes. Individual bias for each channel, multi tap transformer is selectable for 4, 8 or 16 ohm outputs. At $599.00 USD its made in San Diego, California, USA. This is a "rack" or stackable unit comparable to the rack components commonlly used by Pioneer or Dynaco in the early 70's, and basically the same thing as those "vintage" units. Will fit nicely into a rack or the typical glass front stereo cabinet. A turntable or receiver would do just fine stting right on top of it. Not as pretty as the open chassis stuff most often seen these days when looking for a power amp, but much less expensive and for my money, much more practical.
cheers
I own a vintage MacIntosh, the 240 amplifier. This is a classic tube amp from the 1960's - 1970's. A thing of beauty. Output transformers are the finest available at any price. Price on eBay for one in top condition = $1100. Highly recommended, the modern sub-$2000 tube amps can't begin to compare to the quality of this Mac.
Do not EVER buy anything from Jolida. Two capacitors went bad and they kept my amp for over TWO MONTHS and charged me almost $300 to fix it. NO APOLOGY whatsoever except to tell me their "systems weren't the best". $300 for two capacitors. Two months. No contact from them. EVER.
Their stuff is just rebranded Chinese crap anyway.