an amp without "electronic" sound


Could you give some recommendations for a power amplifier without the usual electronic/mechanical sound? It is easy to say: "tubes", but in my opinion tubes are not always the way to go. I myself prefer solid state (because of several reasons).

Chris
dazzdax
Is it possible to go tubes but also having clean sound? I just got a 845 tube amp, sounds warm, but it's very muddy...
Hi Chris,

Take a look here -

http://www.redwineaudio.com/Signature_30.2.html

This is the one to beat as long as you do not need hundreds of watts of power for inefficient speakers.

-Nate

05-14-08: Toufu said:
"Is it possible to go tubes but also having clean sound? I just got a 845 tube amp, sounds warm, but it's very muddy... "

It's probably just a mismatch between the amp and your speakers. The best tube amps really don't sound warm. A great amp, tube or SS, should be transparent, open, stress free and uncolored.

Dave
As Nate mentioned, you should definitley put the Red Wine Audio 30.2 or 70.2 on the top of your audition list!

Good luck,

Jeff
Toufu, the short answer is 'yes', but I would not automatically assume that all triode and all class A amps will be 'clean' and neutral. Re-read my post again- one thing about SETs and push-pull transformer coupled amplifiers is that the larger you build them, the harder it is to get the output transformer to have full bandwidth.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but having an 845 I am assuming that your amplifier is an SET. 845s make a bit more power, in fact that is very large for an SET, and it is also very difficult to get wide bandwidth with such an amplifier. Fifteen to twenty watts may not sound like a lot, but for an SET it is. The best sounding SETs will be 7 watts or less.

Fifteen years ago the 300b power tube was the reigning star- with them you can make an amp that is more or less 7 watts. That was supplanted 7-10 years ago by the 2A3, which is about 3-5 watts. Nowadays the 45 is the big news, and that's only good for a watt or two.

That's what I meant about needing high efficiency speakers. If you have speakers that are less than 103 db or so, its very difficult to experience what these amps have to offer.