Rogue Audio Tempest ii and Tempest iii

I own a Tempest II Magnum. Since the III was released I communicated with Rogue to find out what the differences are and what the update cost is. From what I was told, there is the headphone amps you mention plus a switchable active line stage. The II's line stage is purely passive. If your source components have enough output to drive the amp you'll be fine with the II. With the III you can get an additonal 10 dB of gain. It's not tubed gain but rather Rogue uses an op amp chip made by Analog Devices.

Bottom line is that if you don't use the active line stage the II and III are the same. With the active stage I would imagine there must be a difference because you are adding a solid state active device.

I ultimately decided not to convert my II into a III. I have a headphone amp, so I don't need that. I always have enough input voltage on phono and tuner, and almost always have enough input voltage on CD. I ultimately decided tht if I wanted some line level gain I woud add a seperate Pre amp. So far I have not taken that route. In the past I owned a Pass Aleph P preamp. I suppose if I found and Aleph P or an Aleph L I might jump on it.

I suppose how efficient your speakers are will make a difference.

Well that clears it up for me. I think I may take advantage of claiming a used tempest ii, as opposed to shelling out more for the iii, and if its a magnum, I won't worry about upgrading. Thanks a lot.

The active line stage is quite nice and makes the amp capable of working with more speakers. But you definitely should get one with the Magnum or Super Magnum kits. The demo unit in our local shop has the Super Magnum kit and sounds quite good. It started its life as an early generation Tempest but has been upgraded, twice maybe. It has never sounded better.

Reynolds, thanks for the tip. I have my eye on a magnum version.

I have the tempest III and don't use the additional gain, also keep it in triode.