[jaylevine]

Mulling this over for several years, i.e., trying a tube integrated in place of my all solid-state rig. Don't know why but thinking now may be the time and have narrowed down my choices to what appears to be two products (assuming I can find them on the used market for reasonable prices in 8/10 shape).

Does anyone on the forum have experience with both that they are willing to share (or alternative full tube integrated of comparable quality and value).

Assuming the same tube compliment, could I expect to hear dramatically different results out of my Legacy HD Studio monitors (I only have a really small room near-field listening set-up since downsizing in 2013).

Thanks in advance.

[dolsey01]

I would throw one more option into that mix, Audio Research VSI-60.  I keep an eye on the used market because I own one and they have been selling for +- 2,000. 

The amp was amp of the year in 2010.  There are those who never owned one who seem to give them a bad rap because of one bad tube in a review sample.

Mine has been 100% reliable and I've heard similar results from other owners. 

I bought mine for a few reasons:
1.  I always wanted to own ARC gear, I like their house sound.
2.  ARC services everything they have sold aside from a few rare items that parts are just not available for.
3.  With the pricing of ARCs new foundation series at 8K per piece, I knew this was my last chance to afford one.

I came from a Rogue Audio 99 Pre and 88 Power setup.  My second vote would be for the Cronus.  Rogue's support is the best and given how tubes can sometimes cause problems, I would want a company there that can support me.

[bluemeanies]

If considering tubes...take a look at tubes4hifi.com
Made in the U.S.
Quality and good reviews.
I have a pair of their mono blocks.
All products come in kit form BUT they will assemble them for a price increase.
If interested I know someone who works for them that does OUTSTANDING work, is knowledgeable and supportive.

[jaylevine]

Interesting. Took a quick look and only see pre-amp and power amps...no integrated amp.

[rotarius]

Jay, what will you drive with this amp?  The Rogue will be more dynamic and provide more control. The Primaluna amps all seem to have highish output impedance so less control and more tubey than Rogue.  It's going to come down to speaker matching and your taste. 
If I have to pick, it would be Cronus, I found the Primaluna autobias design a bit gimmicky, not really ideal when I actually measured the bias current of the power tubes. I measured a difference of 10-12mA between tubes on the left channel and about 5-7mA difference on the right channel.  Not exactly ideal for the transformers. 

[bacobits1]

I have the Rogue Cronus Magnum KT120  here although I haven't heard a Primaluna here I can say you would be happy with the Rogue. It is dynamic at 100/ch tube watts with great tone in the mids depending on pre tubes it will throw a nice 3 d image.
Your Legacy specs at 4 ohms, 93 db efficient would be just fine. My Ushers are 4 ohms and 90 db they just slam with this amp. Very enjoyable!!

Oh, made in the USA ++++!!!!!!!!!!!

[JLM]

Like you, a long time user of solid state, but keep wanting to try tubes to gain palpability.  But frankly none of the 3 pieces I've bought (Eastern Electric DAC, Prima Luna Premium Dialogue Integrated, or Schiit Freya preamp) did anything for me.  The EE DAC sounded the same in solid state or tube mode (with stock or recommended upgrade tube), Prima Luna performed best with 6550 output tubes/warmest with EL34s (but was marginally better than my older/cheaper solid state gear), only had the Freya here for the trial period but heard zero tube magic.  Surprisingly the most tubbiness I've heard at home was with a 1st generation Decware SE34.I, but it provided way too much frosting on the cake plus tons of lose bass.  Note that all these were home auditioned with my Brines Acoustics M18-F200 speakers that use extended range AlNiCo magnet drivers (27 - 20,000 Hz).

A friend had a Rogue Tempest integrated that I listened too several times, unfortunately always with less than impressive speakers.  He has since sold it as he's not a fan of air conditioning and somehow it didn't connect properly into his video gear.  Can't tell you if it was Tempest I or II but it seemed to provide a warm, commanding grip, and was beastly heavy.  And unfortunately we never A/B'd it against the Prima Luna as he had the better front end and I had the better speakers/room. 

[jaylevine]

Thanks. Don't know why but feel like I should try just to get it out of my system. At the end of the day I suspect my speaker choices have more to do with my hunger for a new sound, having gone from Maggie's to traditional box speakers. Not sure I ever got over that transition.

Have been looking around for a used Cronus II and found several at Upscale Audio, along with Audiogon. One oddity is upscale audio, a dealer for both as near as I can tell, seems not to be shy when addressing the PL vs Rouge question:
https://www.upscaleaudio.com/collections/amplifiers-specials/products/rogue-audio-cronus-magnum-ii-used

[bacobits1]

Maybe margins are better on PL? Lately I like the idea of USA!
If you look at the Upscale PL You toob pitch... I don't care about 6 coats of hand rubbed lacquer, or the auto bias for that matter.  He pitches it as a "lifetime " product. Ummm yea sure, lifetime.
I had a run in with Deal about 10 years ago where he hung up on me because I was taking up too much of his time on a tube matter. Not cool!

[jaylevine]

Never dealt with them but thinking of calling to check out the price.  Must admit put off by any retailer slamming another reputable brand. I prefer that the marketplace decide these things, not dealers (nothing wrong with them talking up the benefits of their own brand associations, but slamming others, even implicitly as Upscale does on the site, rubs me wrong).

[JLM]

My PL did nothing wrong, just no magic, and resaled much better than my older solid state gear would have.  Mine was Stereophile Class A rated that year, but several mentioned that the auto-biasing circuit sucked almost all the tube life out of it.  Overall I picked the PL because I thought it's features offered a good transition piece for a solid state guy.  Definitely not a tube purist piece.  I did roll 5 sets of output tubes, no wholesale differences, but I was able to check that experience off my audio bucket list.   

Bought my PL from Kevin, we didn't chat much, but I'd be leery of of salesman that post a slam of one of his offerings versus another.  Does he still sell Rogue?  And frankly Klipsh goes better with low powered tube amplification, so probably a poor equipment match.  Or was this single impression representative or a general trend?  Could he have gotten a bad amp or did he suffer a grounding issue?

[rpf]

I've had a Cronus Magnum for a long time now and still like it. A friend and I compared his Prima Luna Dialogue Premium Integrated (not the HP) to the CM on my speakers (3 way, first order crossover, time aligned, phase coherent, 87db, 8ohm). The PL had more of a classic mid-range dominant tube sound, while the Cronus was more neutral in frequency response. The CM also, given it's additional power - 90 wpc vs. 40 wpc with 6550s/KT88s (although the PL sounded like a 60 watt amp) - controlled my speakers better and was more dynamic. The PL HP, of course, will match the CM in power, although perhaps not in control, as mentioned above, nor perhaps in dynamics.

The PL has a passive pre-amp section (as does the ARC for that matter). I have never liked the loss of dynamics that has come with all of the passives I've heard. Some people claim that newer designs ameliorate this: I couldn't say.

Another difference is that the automatic bias in the PL largely negates the difference in sound of various tube types. Not so with the CM. In fact, although the 6550s/KT88s/KT120s produce more power (90-100 wpc), I actually prefer KT66/6L6GC/6P3S-Es (55wpc) to anything else. But it's nice to be able to switch power tubes and vary the sound from time to time. (BTW, KT88s are more linear than KT120s.) The bias of the individual tubes in the CM is easy to set and holds steady for several months or more.

As has been stated numerous times, Rogue's service is exemplary. FWIW, I prefer to have service through a manufacturer r/t a distributor.

[jaylevine]

"The PL has a passive pre-amp section (as does the ARC for that matter). I have never liked the loss of dynamics that has come with all of the passives I've heard. Some people claim that newer designs ameliorate this: I couldn't say."

I didn't realize that an integrated tube amp could have a passive pre-amp? I thought tube power amp sections required the extra signal gain to operate?

My current set-up is a mini-mac running Audirvana Plus (mostly redbook or Spotify) into a Bryston DAC to D-SONIC power amp via a Luminous Audio Walker Mod passive. I bought the Luminous unit after starting out using my Bryston BHA-1 headphone amp as the pre-amp (it is pure class A and has the ability to connect via XLR to a power-amp), but the Bryston simply pumped out too much gain into the D-Sonic. Overall can't say I've lost anything in this set-up by removing the active pre-amp.

Maybe I'm thinking about this all wrong and should look for an inexpensive tube power amp?

Jay

[rpf]

"The PL has a passive pre-amp section (as does the ARC for that matter). I have never liked the loss of dynamics that has come with all of the passives I've heard. Some people claim that newer designs ameliorate this: I couldn't say."

I didn't realize that an integrated tube amp could have a passive pre-amp? I thought tube power amp sections required the extra signal gain to operate?

Yes, they can. The CJ CAV 50 and Rogue Tempest I and II (the Tempest III had an active line stage) are others that did and I've seen several more that I can't remember right now.

Some of the passive integrateds have a relatively higher gain but that doesn't always translate into a more dynamic or full sound. It is the micro dynamics that are most reduced by a passive unit and the effect can sometimes be subtle at first. But I found that long term the music is less engaging than with an active line stage. IIRC from my reading, something about a separate gain stage produces this benefit. There are a lot of discussions about passive vs. active stages here and on the other audio fora.

YMMV.

Gain and impedance matching between separate units is important obviously.

The Rogue Atlas Magnum is the power amp version of the Cronus Magnum.

Good luck.

[roscoeiii]

If you aren't totally committed to an integrated, I have a Stereo 90 with Super Magnum upgrades for sale.

From what I can recall from my research when I bought it, the Rogues distinguished themselves mostly on the quality of their bass. Quite good compared with how most tube amps at their price perform.

[Kw6]

My PL did nothing wrong, just no magic, and resaled much better than my older solid state gear would have.  Mine was Stereophile Class A rated that year, but several mentioned that the auto-biasing circuit sucked almost all the tube life out of it.  Overall I picked the PL because I thought it's features offered a good transition piece for a solid state guy.  Definitely not a tube purist piece.  I did roll 5 sets of output tubes, no wholesale differences, but I was able to check that experience off my audio bucket list.   

Bought my PL from Kevin, we didn't chat much, but I'd be leery of of salesman that post a slam of one of his offerings versus another.  Does he still sell Rogue?  And frankly Klipsh goes better with low powered tube amplification, so probably a poor equipment match.  Or was this single impression representative or a general trend?  Could he have gotten a bad amp or did he suffer a grounding issue?

Have you given Devialet  digital  amps a listen  sounds  like  organic!

[linnlingo]

Just another option Spearit Sound is closing and they have CJ CAV45 Integrated's for $2499. Open box models w/warranty.

[geowak]

It's funny you should ask this question. A few years back I was interested in tube integrated amps because a local dealer was letting me listen to some speakers and he setup some Shindo and ARC stuff that sounding great but WAY outside my price range. I left and eventually bought a pair of Vandersteen speakers from him.

Still quite taken by the tube sound I went looking at the popular amp brands I could afford, which was Primaluna and Rogue. A local home theatre store had the Rogue stuff and I had a listen. Surprisingly, the sales guys were not helping me listen to the amp. They were running to home theatre customers, not wanting to wait on the stereo guy. I left after two visits to the store, but was not floored by the Rogue. Primaluna was not anywhere for me to have a listen within 6o miles.

Then I got a call from Don at Don Better Audio (the guy that helped me find the speakers). He stated he was so floored by a new company from China that he agreed to sell their line. He told me to come by and have a listen through the Vandersteen  floor speakers I had bought. I tried the amp and left with one of the first sales he had of that new company, Line Magnetic Audio. I bought the LM 216ia and it was around 1/2 the price of the ARC and sounded so sweet. According to Don, the company would fully back ANY problems I had and they did when I blew a transformer. Still have it and would move up to the bigger SET amps if I had the cash....

[DTB300]

"I tried the amp and left with one of the first sales he had of that new company, Line Magnetic Audio. I bought the LM 216ia and it was around 1/2 the price of the ARC and sounded so sweet."

I agree with you on the LM gear as I bough the 518IA.   I preferred LM over Rogue or PL after listening.    All three are great products, so others should listen and decide for themselves which they prefer..

[AndrewA]

Another endorsement for the Cronus Magnum II.  I bought one recently, and it displaced the Ayre AX-7 that I had been using, which was sent down to my secondary system.  The CMII gave me the texture and the impact that I was looking for.  It makes the speakers come alive--or to put it another way, they sound less electronic than they did with the Ayre.  YMMV but I'm a believer.