valve amp

Been pondering for a long while about getting a valve amp.

This basically started when i heard a mcintosh pre & power with living voice obxr2 speakers. And although it was in the shop and not a home dem i can put my hands up and say it was the best system i've heard. The realism with voices and instruments was just fantastic.

At prescent I have a bow wizard 2 cdp and Art emotion speakers and a bow wazoo xl which is a good sounding system. But i think a valve amp might take it to another level.

The two i'm considering are Border Patrol S20 and the Art Audio Jota anyone got any experience of those and what do you think of them over solid state.

At present i'm trying for my dealer to get them so i can have a serious listen as this would be my last amp upgrade.

 

Hi,

I own a Border Patrol S10. This is the 9 watt version. This goes quite loud with Living Voice speakers (even louder with Impulse H2 horns) that I own. The amp has the mid range expressive quality that a number of 300B amps have but with very good bass and treble. Gets the toes tapping. It follows the music well. I listen to wide range of music this includes bass heavy tunes. (dub, reggae, dance etc) Also it handles heavy classical pieces very well. The amps has very good tonally ability and sense of dynamics. It plays music very well. It is a good amp.

They can make some solid state sound amps mechanical or harsh.

The S20 will work well with your Art Emotions speakers.

I have heard the Art Audio Jota at shows but didn't sound as good. This is not to say that it's a bad amp just I didn't get a good enough hearing of it.

Worth a listen. I think Shadow audio handle Border Patrol & Art Emotions.

SCIDB

 

I agree. The BP is more even handed in it's presentation across the frequency range whereas the Art tends to lose a little control at the frequency extremes in comparison. It does however have a glorious midrange when properly partnered.

 

The BP has some of the bigest 9 watts I've ever heard ...sounds excellent too!

 

Thanks very much guys.

Triode man, What differences did you hear over the S10 & S20 as the S10 has two power supplys aswell and only two 300b,s.

And do you think the two extra tubes make the S20 just that little extra special.

 

Hi Chris,

The dual supplies give the sound more control to the sound. I have not directly compared the S10 to an S20 but I have a feeling that the S10 may be ultimately better. It think the power supplies are the same size in both. The S20 is a parallel single ended design which means two 300B valves feed of each supply. In the S10 one 300B feeds of each supply. The extra valve creates more demand on the supply. A number of people in valve circles say that Parallel single ended sound worst than normal single ended.

TBH the main differences will be in the power. S20 can go louder and can be used with a wider range of speakers.

I get plenty volume with the S10 with the Living Voice. I do plan to look at more sensitive speakers.

SCIDB

 

Going Tube was certainly another level for me.
I also have found that my speaker cables needed to be improved to get the best out of the what the tubes can do.

The other fun thing is that you can tune the amp to 'your' sound with different tubes.

There are some excellent tube view guides on some HiFi fora.

 

9 watts of tubes goes a LONG way with modern speakers. I run 89dB, 4ohm AudioPhysics (with a 3 ohm min imp.) off an 8w push pull Eastern Electric Minimax power amp and it just works beautifully (though I find myself looking for a limit sometimes, a bad habit indeed).

 

jtc, has the minimax got 4 and 8 ohm taps.?
not long ago, i demo`d the audio physic virgo with my unisis, they sounded stunning, but my amp has only taps for 6-8 ohms, and wondered if i would run into probs later on.