Tube amp and speaker help please

Hi, fairly new to the scene and having owned my Quad 33/303 for 30 years it is time to upgrade. I heard an Edgar CD player and Wavac 300b at a party and it sounded great although I forgot to find out the name of the speakers. I have no idea about tube amps but the sound was fantastic. Is this a good CD and amp combo and what sort of speaker would go well with this; I have Tannoy Mercury from c1984 so they will probably sound rubbish. I have a reasonably healthy budget. On the speaker front I have a smallish room 15'x11' so the speakers will need to go against the wall. I dont mind if they are stand mount or floorstanders. Thanks David.

 

David,
the only speakers I know of designed to be used against the waall are Guru from Sweden. Great sound. the other whilst not specifically designed for but work well are Magnepans. Both are however power hungry. at least 100W of power. For the Maggies Conrad Johnson gear or equal. For the Guru its pretty much open.
The combo you heard was a Single Ended Triode amp that requires a speaker with a sensitivity of 94Db or better. A speaker that would go real well would be the Wall of Sound from Cain & Cain. Good luck trying. Trust your ears not everyones opinion. There are many combos out there. This ia a very good start anyway.


rollo

 

Hi David and welcome,

Yes, I became the proud owner of Dynaudio valve amp earlier this year and can vouch for their virtues.

Not too sure on the speakers, others will be along in a bit to advise. I am now getting quite good (IME!) results from my stand mounted Ruarks and my brothers Spendor floorstanders are very good.






regs

David

 

How about some Audio Note's?

They'll go against walls/corners. For example,

http://www.hifiwigwam.com/forum5/22547.html

I have no connection with these etc etc...

 

I was going to say what Esk said.

I'm in the process of selling some Audionote E's (not for sale, a deposit has been taken) and they are ideal for a 300B valve amp and placement against a wall.

You don't have to spend a fortune. Wavac's and the like are very pretty, but you can get not-that-far-away sound for 100th of the price.

A second hand pair of E's will cost you anything from £700-£1300 ish, pair with a good 300B amp.

I use the Glasshouse 300B (www.hificollective.co.uk) (can be built circa £1200 for you) , also consider a used Audionote Meishu (£1500 ish), Ladyday 300B monoblocks (again can be built up for a small price www.diyhifisupply). You can use even smaller valve amps if you want, but these are all nice. There's also the World Audio Designs 300B amps aswell for similar money.

I think you'll get a great sound for about £2k all in.

 

NB - just noted the K's in Esk's link. They are cheap!!

If you want a smaller speaker than the E's, the's are decent.

 

I am just about to put my SNELL type K for sale on eBay.

£200 + delivery. These are very efficient speakers, perfect for SETs, just need a pair of stands.

 

You could also search out some Klipsch speakers (American) they work very nicely in corners and with their backs to the wall. Dependant on budget, you could also consider upgrading your Tannoy mercury speakers for a pair of bigger Tannoys, maybe Lancasters or bigger.

 

I have found I can run my ProAc D25's pretty close to the wall (30cm actually) if I put some cheap sound absorbant material behind the speaker at the base - for that read wife friendly coloured carpet squares.
The ProAc's are down ported so don't fire it straight at the rear wall.
They have punchy and deep deep bass when the music calls for it.

Don't know what your budget is but the ProAc 140's sound very good at that price point & these are also down ported.

 

Thanks for the replies. I notice that there are a number of amp recommendations with 300b in the title. Presumably this is the type of valve but obviously there will be a difference in how the rest of the amp is put together? My preference would be to buy all equipment new so that I get a warranty from the dealer.

My budget all in for CD, amp and speakers is £8-10k. Having negotiated with the wife this is my once in a lifetime chance to get the system that I have always wanted. If £2k valve setup sounds good then an £8k system will be mindblowing - exactly what I want.

The Edgar sounds a bargain at £1300, far, far better than any other CD player than I have heard at friends houses - Naim, Linn, Quad etc. So I have £7k, maybe more for amp and speakers. I remember reading a review of the Snells years ago and from a little bit of Googling I see that Audio Note now make/sell these.

Is is strictly necessary to buy high efficiency speakers as we do not listen to music loudly? Is the efficiency thing all about how loud an amp can drive a speaker? On this basis a 10W tube amp should be able to easily drive say an 87db speaker. Would this open up more speakers for me or would I be mad to consider speakers that were not specifically designed to use with tubes?

Many thanks for the helpful replies so far.

David

 

Hi Bottleneck, is there any reason why you are recommending amps that cost very significantly less than the Wavac? The Wavac sells for around £6k. Not keen on the "you can have it built bit". As a Quad guy I would rather buy from a company with a good track record for reliable products especially if they are valve amps as things will need tweeking and valves replacing. I do appreciate you trying to save me money though, unless you think that these are as good as the Wavac - I thought that Wavac were meant to be very good judging by some weekend googling.

Thanks

 

Hmmm, Valves and Tannoy DCs. Yummy.

 

Hi Dev, which Tannoys do you have in mind please? Part of the deal with the wife is that the speakers do not dominate the room so they cannot be that big. They also have to be reasonably good looking ie not black and not on ugly stands like my atacama ones, but good looking stands are ok!!!!!

 

Sorry David, bad news.

The best Tannoys (IMO) are the 15" DC. They are BIG and FUGLY but sound great to my ears.

 

Any Edgar owners out there?

having visited Tannoys site I agree that the DC speakers are not something that I could get away with. Also I see that Tannoy have re-introduced the Mercury - mine are the original from 1983.

Any Edgar CD Player owners out there? Many more opinions on the Edgar?


What tube amp and speaker combos do you guys have?

 

Hi David,

I'm afraid that many amplifiers are overpriced - the Wavacs are massively overpriced in the UK IME (they are relatively sensibly priced in Tokyo). They do look lovely but the sound is easily matched for less - and I would expect the Glasshouse model Bottleneck mentions to be at least on a par with the WD300. In addition Glasshouse have an excellent reputation for service - they've certainly been trading longer than the company setup to represent Wavac in the UK. There are lots of small companies that offer excellent service and have been trading for decades - they simply don't have the marketing budgets and focus of those you see in the glossies.

Finally IME high efficiency speakers are a must if you want to get the most out of a low powered amplifier. If you fancy getting a regular speaker like the JM Labs Utopia BE, then you will need more than a simple SET can offer IME.The problem that you have is that efficiency demands volume, which means large loudspeakers. SET's demand efficency, so large speakers and SET's go together. Small speakers demand large amounts of power if they are not to forego bass extension. They are therefore unlikely to match up with SET's. The closest one might get to this approach is a pair of attactive standmounts with TEAD Linear A amplification - but they still won't sound like the Wavac. I'd love to recommend what I am listening to but both amp and speakers come under the ugly camp I'm afraid so it wouldn't be much use to you.

 

The best against the wall speakers i have ever heard are Allison One's - very rare these days but I know where there is a pair going for peanuts if interested - Nick at the Emporium in Norfolk, they used to be mine and I had them rebuilt. Can't use them as we have no suitable wall space in present house

 

If you have been happily Quad all this time why not look at some Quad II-Forty valve amps and the QC-24 pre from their Classic range. Not a 300b SET, but a push pull KT88 - 40 watts'll give you a lot more options regarding speakers. Just a thought.

 

Very interesting comments, thanks for the advice. The Wavac is certainly a nice amp. I listened to it again today at the friend of a friend's house, with his Snell speakers. My friend brought along a Graaf amp as a comparison and a pair of Sonus Faber Concertos. The Wavac had less detail in certain respects, I noticed things on the Graff that I did not notice on the Wavac. The Wavac though seemed to give me more detail on the instruments eg the way a bow draws across a violin string; it was uncanny. The Wavac was too laid back through and the Graaf was too warm and seemed to bloat instruments too much.

It leaves me not being sure which way to go as the Wavac did some things very, very well. I like the option of more easily attainable and easier to match speakers, that are also likely to be more wife friendly. Which tube amp, say 50w, will do what the Wavac did?

Uncle Ants mentioned the Quad, as "I was happy with it". Basically I have been broke for years so could never afford to change my hifi; have not liked it for years! Now that we have had a little windfall we have decided to put most of it towards hifi, but we will not be able to upgrade in the future so it has to be the right thing. We need detail, life, emotion, dynamics and to feel engaged in the music but not with it thrust down my throat like Naim - a friend has Naim and it is too aggressive.

Thanks for the further thoughts.

David

 

Whereabouts are you David?