Canary Audio...

Hi Hklai,

I have the Canary CA-330s paired up with Conincident's Total Eclipse. My preamp is a BAT VK-30SE. My source is a Clearaudio Champion II turntable. In this system, the sound is so natural and unfatiguing. The sound is effortless with good extension at both ends. I've had my CA-330s for 18 months now, and it's been a delight. Before this I had a B&W 805N coupled with an ARC VT-100 Mk II.

Sorry but I have no experience with the 301s.
Hope this helps.

Alfred

have you tried the canary on your vienna acoustics? i cant help thinking that 1.the cj is more capatible 2.you might try different tubes to improve the sound and 3.the cj will drive a wide variety of speakers and 5 years down the road a premiere 11 will still be considered a classic

Thanks for your replies Chotdavid and Jaybo. And Jaybo, yes I have already tried the Canary on my VA.

I realize that the Canary seems to have a higher amplification. Without changing the volumne control, Canary in fact plays louder than CJ. It gave me wrong initial impression that Canary features fuller body and better dynamic.

In order to compensate the difference in loudness, I have to adjust the volumne whenever I switch the amp (roughly a 3db difference).

The most significant different I can tell now is the midrange. Canary (or the 300B tubes) got more magical midrange to a point that vocal does not sound very realistic... at least I have never heard a real person sings to that degree of sweetness. =)

I will do more listening in the next couple days but quite likely I'm going to hang on to my 11A for a while longer.

cheers,
andy

Arthur Salvatore covers Canary (favorably) on his website
www.high-endaudio.com>recommended components. As I recall, he or some associates made a direct comparison between it and several other amps of that type.