horace
05-07-2010, 18:47
My continuing love affair with valve amps has brought me more than my fair share of heartache - the little glowing bastards have it in for me, just waiting for the right moment to ruin my listening pleasure by catching fire, making strange noises or otherwise misbehaving.
Undeterred by my latest tragedy (for those of you who missed my thread, one of my OTL valve amps decided to spontaneously combust the moment I left the room to put the kettle on), I have decided to invest in a good backup amp to keep me going while my tube amp of the moment is in intensive care. All of my previous valve amps have done the same - sounded great, broke, got fixed, sounded great again, broke again etc etc.
So I am going to buy a good, solid, reliable transistor integrated.
I'm thinking of allocating roughly £500 and would be looking at the used market.
My current speakers are Jericho Horns, which are pretty sensitive (about 96 dB, I think), but I do like to change things from time to time, so ideally I'd be looking for an amp that would be happy driving a fairly wide variety of speakers (from horns to average sensitivity floorstanders).
I need a minimum of three inputs and already have a decent phono stage.
Remote control optional (nice to have, but I can do without).
Most of my listening is classical, jazz and acoustic folk/blues. I don't want to blow the windows out, but I do like to listen at realistic levels.
Sonically, I seriously doubt I'll find a transistor amp that will emulate a good tube amp (not at £500 anyway), but I value a natural sound with decent soundstaging and accurate tonal colours more than I need piledriving bass and astonishing detail (no artificial 'brightness' thank you!). Class A appeals - I was rather fond of the old Musical Fidelity A1000 some years back. As a guide, I also liked the Quad 77 integrated I owned not long ago (a lot less than £500 - more like £175 these days, so it's on my list).
Any suggestions to add to my (thus far very short) shortlist?
Cheers
Martin
Undeterred by my latest tragedy (for those of you who missed my thread, one of my OTL valve amps decided to spontaneously combust the moment I left the room to put the kettle on), I have decided to invest in a good backup amp to keep me going while my tube amp of the moment is in intensive care. All of my previous valve amps have done the same - sounded great, broke, got fixed, sounded great again, broke again etc etc.
So I am going to buy a good, solid, reliable transistor integrated.
I'm thinking of allocating roughly £500 and would be looking at the used market.
My current speakers are Jericho Horns, which are pretty sensitive (about 96 dB, I think), but I do like to change things from time to time, so ideally I'd be looking for an amp that would be happy driving a fairly wide variety of speakers (from horns to average sensitivity floorstanders).
I need a minimum of three inputs and already have a decent phono stage.
Remote control optional (nice to have, but I can do without).
Most of my listening is classical, jazz and acoustic folk/blues. I don't want to blow the windows out, but I do like to listen at realistic levels.
Sonically, I seriously doubt I'll find a transistor amp that will emulate a good tube amp (not at £500 anyway), but I value a natural sound with decent soundstaging and accurate tonal colours more than I need piledriving bass and astonishing detail (no artificial 'brightness' thank you!). Class A appeals - I was rather fond of the old Musical Fidelity A1000 some years back. As a guide, I also liked the Quad 77 integrated I owned not long ago (a lot less than £500 - more like £175 these days, so it's on my list).
Any suggestions to add to my (thus far very short) shortlist?
Cheers
Martin