Rogue Amps: Unlike other Tube amps

I auditioned the Rogue 88/66 and Cary sli 80 together on a pair of Tannoy D700 and they both sounded great. The Rogues did not have quite the bass definition or control of the Cary but the mids and highs were basically equal. I think Twl is probably right. Arthur

I had a Rogue 66 magnum preamp and absolutely hated it, it did not fit my tastes or system at all. It was noisey as heck, large amounts of detail was obscured, the top end is rolled off hard, the bass was soggy and slow. It had amazing ability to layer objects in 3D space and was of course "smooth," as some people would call it, I found the midrange pleasant as most tube lovers I suppose do yet I found this manipulation artificial sounding, less true to life, and I couldn't live with the tradeoffs. The Musical Fidelity A3cr preamp ate it alive in my system.

I had a Rogue 88 power amp and thought that it was excellent for it price. It compared very favorably with my CJ Premier 11a (rated class A by Stereophile, if that matters at all), being darker and a tad less transparent. However, it had better bass and was more exciting to listen to. Must be used with efficient speakers (Coincident, Silverline, etc.) and run in triode mode. I sold it because I could not tolerate the fan noise.

I own the amps that were reviewed in Stereophile this month. I made the trip to the book store last night on my way to another Audiophile friends house and read the review. I'm running them with the Audio Aero Capitole MKII and the Virtual Dynamics NITE series Interconnects. I found the stock input tubes to be a bit lifeless so I swapped them out with NOS Mullards and NOS Holland Phillips. This combo of input tubes totally changed the amps. They now sound much more open and extended at both frequency extremes. I've really enjoyed this amp and have had them since the end of this winter (a record for any component in my system). You've probably seen my auction for these amps... Well I'm selling for the same reason as everybody else on this site; to upgrade :) As a gauge of how much I move gear, I've swapped 7 CD players, 4 speakers, 5 amps and 4 sets of cables in this past 12 months. The Rogues have spend the most time in the system.

Buckingham, something I noticed in the review is the mediocre S/N ratio of 70 db. Is the hiss level higher than you've experienced on other tube amps you've owned? Which stock input/driver tubes does Rogue include with the Magnum 120?