I have been using a Conrad Johnson PV9a pre into a Quad 306 Solid State to drive my B&W DM70’s.
The speakers are a Hybrid Electrostatic that are not the easiest to drive, so I thought that this would be the best combination.
In fact it sounded great and gave great pleasure.
However just recently I got hold of an Art Audio Quintet power amp.
This has taken the system up to a whole new level.
The soundstage has opened up and the sound is much more dynamic.
These particular power amps allow switching from Triode mode to Ultralinear plus feedback switching (.5 to 6 db I think).
I now find that I prefer Triode mode and minimal feedback whatever music is being played.
Is it possible that one of the reasons that Valve amps sound so good is that they tend to use much lower amounts of feedback that most transistor amps?
I have noticed that the sound seems to open out as I select lower amounts of feedback.
Anyhow, I am shocked as to how well these amps drive my B&W’s even in triode mode with just 15 watts.
I would not want to go back to using a transistor power amp on my main system.
If I did upgrade in the future, it may be to a single ended triode, but for now I am more than happy.
The speakers are a Hybrid Electrostatic that are not the easiest to drive, so I thought that this would be the best combination.
In fact it sounded great and gave great pleasure.
However just recently I got hold of an Art Audio Quintet power amp.
This has taken the system up to a whole new level.
The soundstage has opened up and the sound is much more dynamic.
These particular power amps allow switching from Triode mode to Ultralinear plus feedback switching (.5 to 6 db I think).
I now find that I prefer Triode mode and minimal feedback whatever music is being played.
Is it possible that one of the reasons that Valve amps sound so good is that they tend to use much lower amounts of feedback that most transistor amps?
I have noticed that the sound seems to open out as I select lower amounts of feedback.
Anyhow, I am shocked as to how well these amps drive my B&W’s even in triode mode with just 15 watts.
I would not want to go back to using a transistor power amp on my main system.
If I did upgrade in the future, it may be to a single ended triode, but for now I am more than happy.