[pmctexas]

I've enjoyed my Mono's for a few years but see folks selling them for Tube Amps - Am I missing something ? Are there tube amps that will provide sonic improvement for $2K ? I have mine connected to Danny Richie designed LS6 speakers (large speakers with lots of drivers)....

Just curious to hear from other Odyssey owners if they have (or considered) switching to tube amps and found it worth the money....

Thanks

[lazydays]

I've enjoyed my Mono's for a few years but see folks selling them for Tube Amps - Am I missing something ? Are there tube amps that will provide sonic improvement for $2K ? I have mine connected to Danny Richie designed LS6 speakers (large speakers with lots of drivers)....

Just curious to hear from other Odyssey owners if they have (or considered) switching to tube amps and found it worth the money....

Thanks

I think the difference is closer to $4,000
gary

[geowak]

I did not like the Odyssey products. I had the Tempest, Candela (tube preamp) and Stratos amp. I thought the stuff was just hype. I was one of the unlucky ones that had hum problems with the components. Interestingly, the Symphonic Line integrated amp I got as a loaner was better than the Odyssey gear. I have a McCormack amp now and it is much more to my liking without the hum.

[kingdeezie]

I've enjoyed my Mono's for a few years but see folks selling them for Tube Amps - Am I missing something ? Are there tube amps that will provide sonic improvement for $2K ? I have mine connected to Danny Richie designed LS6 speakers (large speakers with lots of drivers)....

Just curious to hear from other Odyssey owners if they have (or considered) switching to tube amps and found it worth the money....

Thanks

PMC, I think I can likely be of most help here, because I actually own the same speakers as you do.

I also had Odyssey Kismets monoblocks as well. I now own Manley Neoclassic 250s, and I much prefer the sound of the Manley's to that of any solid state product that I have ever owned or heard.

There is something about tube amplifiers that Solid State can not seem to get quite yet. There is a liquidity and naturalness to the sound that I have yet to hear from solid state.

After the Odyssey, I purchased a Pass Labs 250.5 since this was supposed to offer some excellent "tube-like" class A amplification. It didn't cut the cake either.

I made the move too tubes and have never been happier.

The Danny Ritchie LS models are begging for tube amplification. They have a very benign impedance load with a nominal of 8 OHMS, and they are very sensitive (equal to a point source of 93DB/1/1).

I run my Manley's in triode mode, which means they put out 100 watts; and I have plenty of headroom and plenty of volume.

If you have extra money lying around and want to try something tubed; its definitely worth a shot.

[Jon L]

[quote author=kingdeezie
I run my Manley's in triode mode, which means they put out 100 watts; and I have plenty of headroom and plenty of volume.

If you have extra money lying around and want to try something tubed; its definitely worth a shot.
[/quote]

100 watts tube triode power means a LOT of amplifier and transformers, as can be seen on the price of such beasts!  Not exactly a fair comparison to much less costly SS amps, but glad you found a nice match with your speakers.

[pmctexas]

Thanks for the feedback - Those are a little out of my budget... I wonder if a $2,000 tube amp would be a step up from the Mono's... I expect a $4k to $5K amp would...

[Rob S.]

PMC- I just sent you a PM.

[ducky7566]

http://www.homecinema-fr.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1215&t=29899380


As you can see from the link above, I tried a lot of material !!!!!!!
 tubes and transistors.
 I had 2 amps tube Yaqin brand, nice products and good price!
 but not bought in China, France, a small importer who control, change the tubes, and provides a guarantee cool !!!!!
 It is true that the tube has a sound that is very nice, so sweet
 I had a tube amp config, preamp tube and power amp
 biamplifier for knowledge of the infinity Kappa 8 and 9a

 it was very good, great, but I preferred the power, the mastery of all my stratos mono extreme, with péampli AUDIO RESEARCH SP 16

 with the tube amp, it was beautiful, but with stratos, football was more taping this !!!!!!!!!!!! a real metronome, these stratos !!!!!!!!!!

 the holding of musicality, speed, depth
 sp and 16 which adds aeration, and the opening !!!!! and
 a small side "" sweet "...
 later, it was my choice and my preferences
 with my budget ...
 but which way !!!!!!!!!!!
 see you soon ...

[lazydays]

I did not like the Odyssey products. I had the Tempest, Candela (tube preamp) and Stratos amp. I thought the stuff was just hype. I was one of the unlucky ones that had hum problems with the components. Interestingly, the Symphonic Line integrated amp I got as a loaner was better than the Odyssey gear. I have a McCormack amp now and it is much more to my liking without the hum.

I've done that compairison with the same amp. The difference was like listening to something off the Best Buys sales floor and a high end amp. The McCormack is a fairly good amp, but also about $1000 too much money what it sounds like. Tobe exact my 45 watt tube amp simply smoked it, and my old Monos smoked the 45 watt tube amp. And my Glass Ceiling monos flat smoke the older SE's. I've compaired mine side by side with Krells, P.S. Audios, Parasounds, Creeks, and Musical Fidelity monos. There probably two or three others to add to the group, but names escape me at the moment.


I think that next step up from the Odysseys is probably a Conrad Johnson Premier 140 mono block at over $4K more cash involved
gary

[lazydays]

by the way all you Manley owners have not had fun yet till something goes wrong! Eva is better but Hank is the opposite.

lastly, I think it was Bob Carver that proved you could make a solid state amp sound just like a tube amp; maybe twenty years ago (blind testing by the way). When you are compairing an $8K amp with a $2.3K amp, the $8K amp better be a whole lot better (the CJ 140's sounds better than any of the amps mentioned by the way). You won't get that data out of Stereophile or TAS because Carver didn't advertise with them
gary

[rollo]

    Well if you are considering tubes then by all means listen to a Melody amp. They have a wonderfull synergy with the LS6. Built like tanks with quality parts and great customer service sounds like a no brainer to me.
  Saying that I cannot fathom an Odessey amp souding bad, just no way Jose.



charles

[Tyson]

If your speakers are an easy load and fairly efficient, then tubes will often sound better, but if you have a difficult speaker load or low efficiency, then a SS amp will tend to mate better.  For something like the LS6, I think a good tube amp will get you a lot.  VTL's or some of the new Dynakits would be a good match.

[geowak]

Lazydays

Just giving my opinion based upon my experience with three Odyssey products. That’s why I wrapped it up with …to my liking.

If someone out there has Odyssey gear and is not having issues with it, I think that’s great. Enjoy the music. If your Odyssey smokes another brand, again I say great. Enjoy the music!
Two things are for certain. It is not hard to find owners and previous owners who have had problems with hum and buzz with regard to Odyssey products. You can look in this forum. Also one can find that a fair amount of people have had problems getting ahold of Klaus.  I had to wait months to get him to address my issues. These are not opinions, but facts. So with my experience, quality and service were not there for me.

When I did get McCormack gear it sounded better IN MY SYSTEM and I have not had any problems with it. To me the Odyssey gear did not sound that great, had quality issues and the owner always tried to upsell me. The upsell worked, but the new gear also had problems. In the end, the service was not quality service. My opinion is that the gear is over rated and over hyped.

Your mileage may vary….

[kingdeezie]

by the way all you Manley owners have not had fun yet till something goes wrong! Eva is better but Hank is the opposite.

lastly, I think it was Bob Carver that proved you could make a solid state amp sound just like a tube amp; maybe twenty years ago (blind testing by the way). When you are compairing an $8K amp with a $2.3K amp, the $8K amp better be a whole lot better (the CJ 140's sounds better than any of the amps mentioned by the way). You won't get that data out of Stereophile or TAS because Carver didn't advertise with them
gary

I don't even know where to start with any of your posts because you spout opinion as fact, and use words like "smoked" repeatedly.

First off, if you are insinuating that Manley gear is made poorly or their customer service is suspect; your completely off base.

I bought my Neoclassics used, and the tubes got destroyed in transit from UPS. It blew a cathode resistor. Manley had new plug in resistors to me for a very reasonable price within a day, and I was not a customer. They answered the phone immediately, and took care of me without question. They also registered my name under the amplifiers in case something else happened to them, they were familiar with me.

They also sell a lot of pro gear which has to be built to last; they have a reputation for reliability.

Secondly, these were opinions, but if I must lower myself to your standards, I had Kismets which "smoke" your glass ceilings...

I found the Manley's to be several steps up over the Odyssey amplifiers that I had in terms of musicality, tone, dimensionality, and resolution.

This was in my system, and in my opinion.

I also have the same speakers as the OP, so my opinion in this matter is a little bit more relevant to the OPs question.

I never said the Odyssey was a bad amp; just that I preferred the sound of tubes.

If Bob Carver is so convinced that solid state amps can sound exactly like tube amps, how come his newest creation is a 900 watt TUBE AMP?

Lastly, saying Conrad Johnson is better then all amplifiers mentioned is a complete opinion. IME, CJ has always brought too much warmth to the plate for my liking.

[cujobob]

I would try and find a Mcalister Audio PP150 used... There have been a few versions and the older models aren't the prettiest but they are very powerful 75wpc two channel tube power amps that use sweep tubes.  Can be had for very little money and perform admirably.  They were designed to power electrostats and when I purchased mine I mentioned using them with the very same speakers you own and Peter told me they'd be a great match.  I ended up going another route speaker-wise, but have my PP150 on a pair of OB7s currently.

[rollo]

  No flame wars but there is NO best anything. Snergy with the other components is how any single component is evaluated. it really is simple it cannot play by itself. Everything makes a difference. Especially ones EARS and room. No one hears the same. no room is the same.
  Now the component maybe better in YOUR system but not in another. We have experienced all to often.
  So no best just different. If anything is a "best" contender it may be the speaker, However it does take the right amp to make it sing it's best. My take anyways.


charles

[klaus@odyssey]

OK,  several things here:

First off,  I personally messed up by not taking care of the problem sooner and immediately.  Should have,  but for whatever reason,  didn't.  Sooo,  when I read about this sell-up  it comes across as a rip-off.  Is it a rip-off if in order to eliminate one of the possible reasons for the hum problem is this upgrade,  if the upgrade is done pretty much at cost without profits to make up for the problem ?  Is it then bad service if I'm trying all of this and send out a Symphonic Line integrated as a loaner without any strings attached ????
The problem ?   Who knows what happened ???  I don't.
If one is happy with a different amp that works better in his system,  cool.  Congrats,  and I mean it.
Again,  we have well over 4,000 customers,  and probably 2-3 times more repeat customers than those who sold the gear.  If there are, let's say 6 pieces / month for sale,  then that equates to roughly 1/10th of 1 % of Odyssey on the used market.  Not a big deal at all....

As for tubes,  I understand why some people are drawn to them.  Digital nope, but tubes I understand,  and of course this is very subjective and spectacularly system dependent.

Now,  I probably have much more experience with tubes than 99 % of you guys out here,  and I'm talking about in my system,  not at a show or dealer demo.  Keep in  mind that over the 23 years I took a lot of trade-ins if interesting enough,  and thus had the chance of experiencing dozens and dozens of audio pieces.  As for tubes,  I have had different ARC's and CJ's,  different CAT's,  Lamm,  Graaf, Futterman and Moscode, Melos, Aranyov's, Quicksilvers, EAR, Klimo's, Thor,  Lazarus,  the fantastic Kebschull's that I imported in the 80's,  some other suspect German gear,  a couple of cheap Chinese pieces,  that were adventurous to say the least, old MC Intosh's Fisher, Eico's,  Dyna, and dozens of other vintage gear that I got for a friend in Germany for him to sell, 4 different Jadis, still some Symphonic Line,
Manley, Rogue, Cary, and a few others I forgot.  Right now I have the SL Erleuchtung, an ARC 100, and an Almarro 318 B.
To say that I have had experience with tubes is an understatement,  and all of them in my system.   Needless to point out that I like tubes as well.

Yes,  I like tubes when I'm in the mood to listen to soft music or voices for an hour or two.  However,  I also listen to big dynamics and Rock , Jazz Rock.  There are a few tube amps that I could live with full time,  but honestly,  I don't have that money to spend.  You're talking at least 10 - 15 times the amount of what I have with my own gear.  It is also clear to me that unless your speakers are truly synergistic, cheap tube amps just don't cut it.  2nd and 5th harmonic ditortions,  yup.  Soundstaging,  - of course.  Sweet undertones,  ditto.  All of that can be had in a 100 $  tube amp.  Easy,  but when it comes to the real life illusion and mastering of all of music's facades, then they are pretty much all sub-par.  But again, personal preferences.  That, in a nutshell, is my experience of 24 years in the business,  and of course,  based on my taste.

So,  to sum it up:
Sorry about the mess-up,  apologies again.
Tubes?  Yes, within reason and ONLY  based upon system synergy and taste.


Late,

Klaus

[klaus@odyssey]

As for Bob Carver,  WOW !!!!

[ducky7566]

if I were to buy tube amps, I'd go probably on blocks Kebschull 35 / 70, or a pair of Esoteric Audio Research EAR 509 (MKII), or maybe MC 225, or 275 !!!!!
 
the tube is good, but sometimes I wonder if this is his "real" ... not a little "makeup" ...
 Other brands do not inspire me ...

 but it is only to make bi-amplification on my future  speakers ...

 and my new amp on the stratos- Kismet on the bass!

 which, already, for me, would be a sacrilege, somewhere ...

when  Klaus sent me , I do a test to see if this amp provides good alone, single amplification ...

when I saw this in a simple amp with my extreme, I think it will be fine !!!!!!!!
 strongly as I receive !!!!!!!!!!!
  long live Odyssey ...      

[TAULISA]

Hi

I really do not know why so much attention being drawn nowadays on tube amplifiers considering the overall  peak to peak current improvement laid down so far over many worldwide solid state mono blocks topologies.

This is personally proven by the fact that many a time over the last decade I remember auditioning my best classic music sessions within systems featuring solid state mono blocks amplifiers alongside pure Class A preamplifiers, basically because when it comes to handling massive symphonic orchestrations of the past such as BERLINER AND WIENER PHILHARMOKINER conducted by HERBERT VON KARAJAN; turns out  that in most circumstances tube power amplifiers are not capable of  yielding those spectacular, robust and extreme low bass frequencies !!!

Yet, in this context  I figured out on the long run that class A tube preamplifiers perform undoubtedly well; delivering that sound of  warmth and delicacy necessary for reproducing a Stradivari Violin and a Steinway & Sons piano when auditioning chamber music for instance….

Bottom line:
This is the best pre-amp synergy sought after in my system featuring a
First Sound Tube preamplifier mated with Odyssey Audio mono blocks connected with  2 ½ -way scan speak customized floor speakers based on 260 Watts/4Ohm with 91-dB sensitivity….

Regards
Toby