• WARNING: Tube/Valve amplifiers use potentially LETHAL HIGH VOLTAGES.
    Building, troubleshooting and testing of these amplifiers should only be
    performed by someone who is thoroughly familiar with
    the safety precautions around high voltages.

I want a tube amp that looks good, and sounds okay. Get angry at me in this thread :)

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I'm 41 years old, I have 2 kids running havoc, and my ears are probably ruined by the festivals I've been to. The only alone-time I get is in the evening, while my wife and/or kids are in the living room and I'm in the kitchen listening to music while reading up on diy audio.com :) I've moved my diy speakers to the living room, and I'm planning on buying sonus Faber venere 2.5 speakers for "my" kitchen.

I want an amplifier to match them that sounds good, but even better - it should look good :) I'm considering Chinese tube amps. Does anybody have a suggestion for an amplifier that balances HiFi quality and looks? (800 euros tops?)
 
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No anger , we all have that hunger for tubes. Its in our primordial genetic makeup. There is just something mysterious about those electrons flying through space and time in the aether.

I started out with a Dynaco st70 from ebay. You can use the pc sound card or find a preamp on ebay. It also depends on your budget. And they can be high maintenance too. So there is a cost consideration.
 
Cost…

I wanted a steak yesterday; its been a long time. Imagining an 18 oz chunk of prime Angus, nicely blackened, rare-to-medium-rare in the center. Horseradish. Ridiculous smoked Carolina pepper sauce. A baked potato, a rasher of carrots. Forget the greens - that's for pikers.

I went to the store.
I found a prime ribeye. It was … exactly 19 oz.
So… I bought it.

Now, today, its gone.
And I want another one.

THIS IS THE COST of maintaining a great sound system.

GoatGuy
 
I want a tube amp that looks good, and sounds okay. Get angry at me in this thread 😊

~800 Euros and tubes and aesthetics to me equals waiting for a nice price on a used Copland. Looks like the Cello gear that goes for many times that.

There’s a CTA-401 on fleabay right now for 933 euros, located in Switzerland. It’s a steal at that price. I’d bump your budget and score that and never look back. It’s an integrated, so you won’t need to spring for a separate preamp.
 
My personal opinion. Don't buy a Chinese amplifier unless you have enough knowledge to fix it if (or when) it goes wrong. Or you have a local repair place. Support and repair usually means shipping it back to the supplier at your expense. Just my thoughts based on having an 845 amp go up in flames!
 

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The Sonus faber are supposed to be good with Octave V70...there is the problem with 800€ tops...but indeed, these speakers need power. With that budget, look after "The Engineers Amp" as a basis in this forum, should do the Sonus faber as well, with the right tubes and setup...
Marcus
 
(might not be enough power)how about this?

Lowther Club Jazz 6L6 Amplifier

The trouble with importing from the USA to Europe is not just the shipping (which is bad enough), it's the added handling and customs charges. In the UK this makes importing US equipment uncompetitive. I've put up with it for importing DHTs but that's as far as I go. For some reason, Asian stuff seems to go through customs without handling and other charges - don't ask me why. And of course, Europe is a common market so much easier to buy stuff and have it shipped over here. I think we need to bear this in mind when suggesting US equipment to European users. I know it's easy to recommend products you are familiar with in the USA, but it's not that simple in practice.
 
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