Tube amp for "difficult" speakers,,,

Thank you for all your responses. I have appreciated this thread, you've given me a lot to test out and think about.
Øystein

O_holter , CAT JL3 mono blocks should do the job nicely for you. I have had allot of amps over the years both solid state and tube and by far these are my favorite. What shocks me is that they out performed any of the solid state amps I have had in the bass region, just so much more realistic sounding.

One other thing is that the CAT's really don't even throw that much heat off, I had a pair of PASS X600.5's and they produce more heat.

I'm also looking for a tube amp for my Dynaudio 52SEs... impedance curve can be found here:

http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/speakers/bookshelf/dynaudio-52se/page-3

Any thoughts about whether these would be difficult to drive with glass would be appreciated. I'm looking at the Primaluna Dialogue and Melody I880.

Dear respondents,

Dev - thanks for the advice, I will follow up, but not sure if the CAT has enough drive to give the speakers the needed "song and dance" capability. Which my more powerful s-state amp gives even if it isn't tubes.

Robtym - it looks like your 52SE's dip down to 5 ohm in the 20-200 herz region, while my Consequences go down to 3.6 ohm. So a 100-200 watts amp may be enough, in your case (just guessing, i am no expert in this). To my amazement (thinking Dynaudio = difficult load), I recently heard a small Cayin tube amp drive a pair of Dynaudio 140 monitors to great effect, the sound was all over the place, speakers disappearing (a very well-damped room, though).

Since no-one, so far, has come up with a solution based on experience of a good tube amp driving the Dynaudio Consequence speakers, and I like their sound, I am trying various other things (damping, footers, cables).
Oystein

It's not a question of having enough power to drive the Dynaudios to a proper level, it's a question of frequency balance. Since the Dynaudios dip to 5 ohms in the bass region, and have an 8 ohm nominal rating, I believe it's probable the bass will have less volume than the highs, and therefore the speakers may sounded "tipped up", although it won't be the fault of either the speakers or the amp, but rather the result of a speaker/amp mismatch.

Chapter 15 of Robert Harley's book "The Complete Guide to High End Audio" has a good explanation.