Lowest Powered Amp to drive Vantages

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Ex Lion Tamer

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Hi Everybody,

I'm going to be amp shopping in the next few months to match my Vantages. I would like to go with tubes and I'm leaning towards something along the lines of a Mac MC275, though it is a budget buster and I would like to find something a little less costly (on the used market) with comparable sound/build quality.

My general question however is; what is the lowest power in a tube amp that anyone has (satisfactorily) driven the Vantages?

My room is medium size I guess - about 20' X 16' X 7.5'. Listening habits are indie-rock and small combo jazz. I listen mostly at night so ear-splitting decibel levels are not important. What is important is an amp that sounds satisfactory at low to mederate listening levels.

If anyone has any specific recommendations, I'd love to read them.

Thanks for reading
 
Hi Everybody,

I'm going to be amp shopping in the next few months to match my Vantages. I would like to go with tubes and I'm leaning towards something along the lines of a Mac MC275, though it is a budget buster and I would like to find something a little less costly (on the used market) with comparable sound/build quality.

My general question however is; what is the lowest power in a tube amp that anyone has (satisfactorily) driven the Vantages?

My room is medium size I guess - about 20' X 16' X 7.5'. Listening habits are indie-rock and small combo jazz. I listen mostly at night so ear-splitting decibel levels are not important. What is important is an amp that sounds satisfactory at low to mederate listening levels.

If anyone has any specific recommendations, I'd love to read them.

Thanks for reading

Hola...I have a customer who is using a Margules amp in triode mode, which delivers only 30W/ch and the sound is clean and superb!...his room is about 6 meters X 4.5Meters...happy listening,
Roberto.
 
get some good Rotel stuff I think you will like it ! some audio snobs will give you grief but their stuff sounds awesome and is priced right.
 
yeah I know. I think PASS is in my future
 
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Hey, finally someone from close to my neck of the woods - Montreal. Welcome Ex Lion Tamer. Check out some of the ARC stuff on Audiogon - something like a nice VT100. You may want to also pop into Filtronique and see what they have. They do carry ARC.
 
Hi Everybody,

I'm going to be amp shopping in the next few months to match my Vantages. I would like to go with tubes and I'm leaning towards something along the lines of a Mac MC275, though it is a budget buster and I would like to find something a little less costly (on the used market) with comparable sound/build quality.

My general question however is; what is the lowest power in a tube amp that anyone has (satisfactorily) driven the Vantages?

My room is medium size I guess - about 20' X 16' X 7.5'.

I recently borrowed a pair of Vantages and powered them using my PrimaLuna ProLogue 7s. They did a great job, and are less than $3500/pair. My room is about the same size as yours, and they were able to be play as load as I wanted.
 
Hey, finally someone from close to my neck of the woods - Montreal. Welcome Ex Lion Tamer. Check out some of the ARC stuff on Audiogon - something like a nice VT100. You may want to also pop into Filtronique and see what they have. They do carry ARC.

Thanks Bernard, ARC is definitely on my list of possible suspects.

I'm actually thinking of going backwards sort of. I used to own a VAC Avatar SE integrated; I sold it a few years ago, with deep regret - at the time I owned a pair of Thiel 3.6s and thought I needed a little more power/grunt. Now I really miss it and I'm thinking about picking up another. Anyone ever heard this beautiful integrated with Vantages or a similar speaker (ie with a pwered woofer)?
 
really all jokes aside Rotel does make a clean machine.
 
Driving Vantages

I am using a McIntosh MC-252, which delivers 250w/channel. It's not a tube amp but I am very pleased with the sound of my Vantages. I use an Outlaw 7500 to drive the remaining ML (Mosiacs) I use as surrounds. I am not conversant in the terminology but suffice it to say that when I hear the Allman Brothers playing live from the Fillmore East through my Vantages the hair on my arms stands up and likewise for the immolation of Brunhilde. You have made a great choice for your speakers.
 
Thanks Bernard, ARC is definitely on my list of possible suspects.

I'm actually thinking of going backwards sort of. I used to own a VAC Avatar SE integrated; I sold it a few years ago, with deep regret - at the time I owned a pair of Thiel 3.6s and thought I needed a little more power/grunt. Now I really miss it and I'm thinking about picking up another. Anyone ever heard this beautiful integrated with Vantages or a similar speaker (ie with a pwered woofer)?

If you're happy with VAC Avatar and you're looking at ARC, you should look at the VS series instead of VT series. The VT series is a bit more "sterile" and ARC has gone back to the more romantic sound of the original ARC with the VS series. That said, I think you should get the VAC Avatar to drive the Vantage and be done with it.

Here's a thread I participated in where a member was having a VERY hard time replacing the VAC with another amp: Bought some Vantages
On another note, the here's a thread talking about a 15w amplifier driving the Summits: Summits and a 15w tube amp?. This thread talks about 15w being the low limit of having enough power to drive these speakers.

Good Luck
Spike
 
I encourage you to take a look at what I have powering my Vantages, while the skeptics may snicker, I'll put it up against the Mac 275 any day of the week !
 
I encourage you to take a look at what I have powering my Vantages, while the skeptics may snicker, I'll put it up against the Mac 275 any day of the week !

Why would anyone snicker about those Monoblocks? :confused:
 
When I started to build my new system I also wanted to go for tubes and decided to start with ARC. My VS60 is great even though I can see the difference with the Plinius (120w) I had as a loaner. My ARC is still breaking, hence I need to be patient on realm performance. Overall, very impressed with the warmth of the sound as well as the details and detailed punch of all sounds.
 
Low level listening?

Bonjour Monsieur Ex Lion Tamer,
I had a pair of Sonic Frontier SFM 75 Mk IIs driving my Aeons. I was very, very happy with them when I listened at low volume levels late at night, they were 75 Watts per channel, I used the 4 ohm setting. They had a very seductive midrange without sounding overly lush and romantic. I finally sold them because I did not prefer them at lease breaking volume levels ;). I replaced them with a Pass Labs X150, but that's another story for another day...........
Chris
 
This company... Grant Fidelity... caught my eye a while back.

They have some really interesting stuff and it's a lot more affordable than the big names. (I've never been convinced that the big name guys are better)

http://grantfidelity.com/site/catalog/40/specials

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65wpc Class A tube amp for $950 :eek:

Might be worth a look.
 
I posted very favorably about the Grant stuff in my RMAF show report. Your pictures are way better than mine, but they sounded very good indeed, especially considering the price. They are out of Canada if memeory serves me right.
 
All I will say is be careful... in fact this amp is a Yaqin MC-100B. Do a Google and you will see what I mean.

Grant are re-branding chinese kit - there is no way they could meet the prices otherwise.

They are also re-branding Jungson. Check www.jungson.com. We came across this when Tim did an RMAF post on a "Grant" amp - in fact it was a Jungson.
 
Thanks... Didn't know that they were rebranded Chinese units.

I don't think that it necessarily means that they don't sound good. For sure it could be a PITA if anything should go wrong. Always best to err on the side of caution.
 

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