High End Tube Gear Transition to High End SS

My suggestion, from a habitual changer of gear every few years or less, is to make 1 change (just change the speakers if you are so inclined) and then live with it for a few months. Otherwise, if you make multiple changes at once, say electronics and speakers, you won't really know which one is affecting the sound.

And live with the change for a while. I've noticed, and believe, we all have an aural memory. When you make a change, for better or worse, our ears remember the old sound that we used to have. It takes a while to get used to the new sound and forget the old. If you've had tube gear for years and are used to that sound, to change back to SS is a very big adjustment to make. Personally, I would not recommend it.

If it were me and I had tube gear for years and wanted to change electronics, I'd get other tube gear or a tube integrated. From personal experience, I've made the change many times from tubes to SS and every time, I've regretted it. Unfortunately it was done more out of necessity than anything else. I'm a tube guy at heart and when I go SS, I end up having the itch every few months to want to get different gear; however, whenever I've had tube gear, I'm content not to make any changes for a much longer period (5 years or more).

Thanks again, you guys. I am learning a lot here. I will make but one change soon, and that will be speakers.

Lou_setriodes, I appreciate you sharing your experience and completely agree about aural memory. And, I can see myself easily becoming a "habitual changer" and do not want to go there. :)

My goal with the speaker change is to remove the two large floor standers from our living room and I hope this will make it much easier to simply sit and enjoy music. I've been cautioned by a trusted dealer NOT to get rid of the MFA tube gear. He, too, said I'd regret it. I built a very heavy but attractive audio rack a few years ago, and all the gear, while hardly unobtrusive, sits on the rack in a purposeful way. The rack is in a corner so it's a reasonably tidy presentation, and not in a visual or traffic path.

I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Larsens and will let you know how that goes.

I am not going to perform any tweaks or any other changes until I've lived with the new speakers for sufficient time. This should be quite fun and at the very least, interesting!

I agree, I would not touch the MFA gear it is classic tube gear and the preamp was especially very highly acclaimed. What kind of output tubes do the mono amps have? I am not as familiar with them, but remember reading incredible things about your preamp. Would love to see pictures of your system and room when you have an opportunity.

Lou-setriodes wrote:
"I agree, I would not touch the MFA gear it is classic tube gear and the preamp was especially very highly acclaimed. What kind of output tubes do the mono amps have? I am not as familiar with them, but remember reading incredible things about your preamp. Would love to see pictures of your system and room when you have an opportunity"

Hi Lou:
I appreciate your comments. The term "habitual changer" is now in my lexicon! :) I am using 4 matched Genalex Gold Lion KT-88's in each amp. They are a substantial improvement over the old 6550's. I am not much of a tube roller but I also have a set of almost new matched Ruby KT-88's which I'll try one of these days. Scott Frankland did a fantastic upgrade on the Lumi Preamp- taking it as far as he could. Even though it sounded darn good prior to his work, I was astonished at how much better it sounded after the upgrades. The amps were also noticeably improved but not quite as dramatically as the Lumi.

This thread has helped me to understand that change may not always for the better. :)

I'll see about doing a snapshot or two of the system.

Regardless of amplification technology used, a focus on coherency in the sound can yield great results for minimal cost.

Ironically, often the less complex gear tends to be the most coherent sounding. ICs and speaker designs, especially in regards to crossover and baffle geometry, are two areas of focus that can yield big dividends and work well with any kind of amplification if matched well to the speakers.

SPeaker wires used may also yield dividends in regards to coherency but I have not dabbled much there to-date.

Specific products I have heard that are particularly coherent:

DNM Reson ICS due to simple cost effective minimalist design I believe

OHM Walsh and Triangle speakers due to use of wide range main drivers and/or simple crossover

Any Walsh design speaker or even more conventional single driver full/wide range speakers should also share similar traits regarding coherency.

Another 2-way speaker brand I have not heard that I believe to have these traits is Ref 3a. I have also seen some older Meadowlark designs that are said to do well in this regard. Thiel perhaps as well.

There is a thread going on about the DEQX digital correction solution that addresses the time coherency issues inherent in many systems. Teh consensus seems to be that this is a real issue in many cases and specialized digital processing to compensate these days is a viable solution.