SF Assemblage ST-40 tube amp?

I can vouch for the Dyna St-70. Excellent highs and midrange. But needs work on the bass end...especially if you have some difficult to tame speakers. I've heard the ST-70 II, the revamped model by the Japanese, is much better in that department. But the old Dynas are so cheap its obscene. I like my first so much, that I'm shopping for a second to running dually on my Vandys. If I were you, I'd get one for $200 or so and see how you like it...it will be a great intro to that "tube sound" that everyone talks about.

Sorry. I thought the question was open-ended. :)

Thanks anyway, Osclib. I checked out the bottlehead.com, and their amps aren't powerful enough for me (although Sam Tellig thinks the 2A3 tube is the "tube of the 21st century", heh heh). They'd be interesting if I had really effecient speakers (one of my speaker projects will be, but I've got to build it first).........................No problem at all, John. John and Issabre, I may just have to try a Dynaco ST-70, then. I don't know, we'll see. The whole reason I was thinking the Sonic Frontiers Assemblage was because it was supposed to be very good in the bass (as ANY tube amps go, besides affordable ones...has a high claimed damping factor for a tube amp), and not do anything seriously wrong in the rest of the range. It even supposedly has a terrific midrange. It's possible that the Dynaco is a better amp, other than the bass, though. I have no idea...........I HAVE HEARD A TERRIBLE SOUNDING TUBE AMP BEFORE. It was a Luxman, not sure the model number. Very inaccurate and blurry sounding, with bass and lower mids having the most coloration I've ever heard from a hi-fi component. Perhaps the tubes were long past going bad, I don't know. That was with Dynaudio Contour 1.8 Mk 2 speakers..........I would have been discouraged about tube amps if I hadn't since heard a 125 watt VTL amp that sounded less tubelike and more analytical on Soundlab speakers, than did my Krell amplifier on my Paragons!.......I own various speakers, and am building several more. The primary commercially bought ones I have right now are: Alesis Monitor Ones, Paragon Acoustics Radiants, and Magneplanar MMG's. I have high hopes for my project speakers...but need to spend more time working on them, than talking about them, heh heh.

You will probably write me off as "the lunatic fringe", but I have a few words of advice for you if this is your first tube amp. To get the real MAGIC that the vacuum tube has to offer, you need to look for the following types of circuit: Point to point wired-no printed circuit boards; only two output tubes per channel, regardless of the power output (this is assuming that you are interested in push-pull amps as opposed to single ended); simple circuit, using minimal number of parts; and, tube rectification. True, you can get good sound from some designs that do not incorporate these features, but, most all vintage products are built this way and can be obtained for minimum dollars. Do not listen to people that claim all old tube amps sound "warm, veiled, or murky" Some of these designs have a clarity and transparency (true transparancy) that will blow away many modern multi killobuck products. Do not be afraid to slightly modify the input circuit. Remember that everything that happens before the input tube is sacred. this means that you should add good input jacks and eliminate any pots. or input caps if possible. I find that true tube magic comes from lower powered amps, assuming that you have a compatible speaker.

Harv, thanks for your input. Um, I'm afraid we're ALL on the lunatic fringe, being in this hobby in the first place (whether tube-heads, solid state-heads, digi-heads, styli-heads, whatever). So, I'm not dismissing you! I agree that a simpler circuit can usually be better (and point-to-point, rather than circuit boards). But, I'm really looking for something in at least the 30 to 40 wpc area, since I'm used to 500 wpc (use most of it only on the Maggies, though). I'm hoping to churn out a quick DIY speaker on the cheap that uses a bunch of low cost series-parallel cones, that should be easy to drive, and very efficient. If it turns out to be more efficient than I'm thinking, then I can consider the "few watts per channel" types................However, it will feature 2 Vifa dome tweeters in parallel, so the impedance will be dropping to like 2.5 ohms in the low treble (unless I can somehow compensate for it in the crossover). WILL THIS KILL A LOW POWERED TUBE AMP? The impedance below the treble will be nominally around 6 ohms, so that should be ideal for all but maybe extraordinarily weak and unstable amplifiers.