Cyrus Amp or Valve Amp

[CnoEvil]

Cyrus + Focal = A bit bright

Cyrus + Spendor = Not bright

Jadis Valve Amps = A more "golden" presentation

VTL Valve Amps = Very clean and dynamic presentation

Hifi has few hard and fast rules.

 

[CJSF]

So is it fair to say if I want a change of amp I should be looking at Solid State amps and not Valve?

Or are there worthy upgrades for the Audiolab 8000A or Cyrus One?

A straight 'avoid valves' has no basis in reason, the problem might be price and how you like to enjoy you music, valves can get a bit involving, practicaly and sonicaly.

A good compramise is 'Croft', Glen Croft makes a great £1000 (with mm phono stage) hybrid intigrated amp, valve in, mosfet out, plenty of drive. A decent 'full valve amp' is likely to cost concideably more for possibly less, thats IMHO, all depends on what you put with what. A decent dealer and auditioning is the best rout and dont rush it.

Been through the 'out for years, back again mill' . . . I went the Croft rout after auditioning, was going for CD, decided to go retro vinyl. But then I'm a tweaker, so bits I can look at, admire, change, adjust and realy get involved in the musicality of the performance suite me.

CJSF

 

[namefail]

Watt level of output, watage, do valve amps rate these days?

 

[JoelSim]

I've heard a few Cyrus systems and it's not to my particular taste, I too, find them bright and they would need to be partnered with soft/warm speakers. A valve amp will typically give you a much warmer sound than a Cyrus, perhaps less ultimate detail, but to my mind a more enjoyable and immersive experience.

It's all down to personal taste though and what you are looking for.

 

[CJSF]

Watt level of output, watage, do valve amps rate these days?

No differant to what they were years ago, my full falve set up is running in Triode mode and delivering 20w into my PMC speakers that are not know for their sensativity and they are at the end of 8m of K20 speaker cable, no problems. They can of course be switched to Ultralinier mode for 40w of power, but I prefer Triode.

Glen Crofts Hybrid intigrated pushes 50w, he test his amps through Quad electrostatics, stacks of power.

I did notice a question mark over 'valve information delivery compared to solid state'? At least as good, probably better but diferant. Valves have a delicacy and involvement that is hard to find in a like transistor amp. Its a question that needs looking at in relation to method and set up of retreval and personal tast. In my experiance, £ for £, no contest in favour of valves, but then I'm biased aint I . . . and all IMHO of course.

I supose there is still old fashoned thinking that valves are wolly and warm sounding, not these days, 'wooly' has gone, warm is still there if you want it but its depends on the rest of the system and that 'personal tast' again.

CJSF

 

[CnoEvil]

I did notice a question mark over 'valve information delivery compared to solid state'? At least as good, probably better but diferant. Valves have a delicacy and involvement that is hard to find in a like transistor amp. Its a question that needs looking at in relation to method and set up of retreval and personal tast. In my experiance, £ for £, no contest in favour of valves, but then I'm biased aint I . . . and all IMHO of course.

I supose there is still old fashoned thinking that valves are wolly and warm sounding, not these days, 'wooly' has gone, warm is still there if you want it but its depends on the rest of the system and that 'personal tast' again.

CJSF

I think it's a great shame that Valve amps don't make it onto more people's demo list.....if they did. I suspect there would be a much greater demand. The technology might be old, but soundwise, they've come a long way.

 

[namefail]

I came across these guys while researching my question. Audio Institute. Anyone with any hands on experience?

 

[Voodoo66]

I was intending to keep the speakers Ive got at the moment. I certainly don't mind a bit of a tinker about. I need to find a dealer who can demo some valve options alongside the Cyrus stuff in Essex

 

[CnoEvil]

I need to find a dealer who can demo some valve options alongside the Cyrus stuff in Essex

Zackley.

 

[floyd droid]

I think it's a great shame that Valve amps don't make it onto more people's demo list.....

I blame plastic penguin

 

[CJSF]

I was intending to keep the speakers Ive got at the moment. I certainly don't mind a bit of a tinker about. I need to find a dealer who can demo some valve options alongside the Cyrus stuff in Essex

I have the speakers I finished my 1st hifi life with, PMC LB1, they are circa 1990, I stil use the same cables of those days too, thats interconect and speaker. The reason, I know the sound, I quite like the sound and see no reason to change. I was able to get the detail and presentation I wanted by manipulating the rest of the system, mainly the Turntable. Get the source right and you are three quaters of the way there.

You are welcome to visit, plenty of time being retired, I'm on the extreem south edge of Suffolk.

CJSF

 

[davedotco]

I think it's a great shame that Valve amps don't make it onto more people's demo list.....

I blame plastic penguin

I love valve amplifiers almost as much as I love Alice Morgan......

However, good ones are expensive, transformers being the primary reason.

Icon Audio will supply EL34 based integrated amps in the price range £1000-1600 though my own EL34 based amplifier, beautifull though it is both in terms of performance and construction, had a retail price set at a rather eye-watering $8000.

Valve amplifiers at £1000 or less are pretty thin on the ground, the rather basic Icon Stereo 25 (EL34) can be had at that price, but only just. my inclination for a valve amplifier under £1000 would be the Croft integrated, a hybrid design for about £800.

 

[CJSF]

I think it's a great shame that Valve amps don't make it onto more people's demo list.....

I blame plastic penguin

I love valve amplifiers almost as much as I love Alice Morgan......

However, good ones are expensive, transformers being the primary reason.

Icon Audio will supply EL34 based integrated amps in the price range £1000-1600 though my own EL34 based amplifier, beautifull though it is both in terms of performance and construction, had a retail price set at a rather eye-watering $8000.

Valve amplifiers at £1000 or less are pretty thin on the ground, the rather basic Icon Stereo 25 (EL34) can be had at that price, but only just. my inclination for a valve amplifier under £1000 would be the Croft integrated, a hybrid design for about £800.

Agreed, cost is the stumbling block Dave. I have gone the route you indicate. The Croft intigrated is a steel at its price of £850, thats without a phono stage, £1000 gets the full package inc., MM phono. I went from this to a KT88 Stereo 40 in January this year. Recently did a back track on the Croft v S40 . . . S40 + a phono stage cost the best part of £2500.00, eye watering enough. My back track assesment was; value for money, the Croft wins out, it aint that far behind at less than half the price, 'all the essential misic components' are there in the presentation to enjoy.

Its suprising how much extra can be draged out by getting the Turntable working at 110% . . . quality signal in, quality sound out . . . 8) The Croft is so good at presenting the infomation in an uncoloured way, it puts nothing of its self in the music . . . yep I'm in love with valves too.

CJSF

 

[plastic penguin]

I did notice a question mark over 'valve information delivery compared to solid state'? At least as good, probably better but diferant. Valves have a delicacy and involvement that is hard to find in a like transistor amp. Its a question that needs looking at in relation to method and set up of retreval and personal tast. In my experiance, £ for £, no contest in favour of valves, but then I'm biased aint I . . . and all IMHO of course.

I supose there is still old fashoned thinking that valves are wolly and warm sounding, not these days, 'wooly' has gone, warm is still there if you want it but its depends on the rest of the system and that 'personal tast' again.

CJSF

I think it's a great shame that Valve amps don't make it onto more people's demo list.....if they did. I suspect there would be a much greater demand. The technology might be old, but soundwise, they've come a long way.

It isa great shame but there are reasons:

1) Can't find a good budget example.

2) Contrary to a lot of valve fanboys views they need easy load speakers. I'm sure there are some exceptions, but generally that holds true.

3) To hear a valve amp at its best they need a warm up period.

4) They tend to overheat quicker than SS amp. Limited listening window.

5) And most importantly, unless you go very high end like Graaf they are totally fugly.

Before any of the fanboys whinge about the overheating aspect, they DO overheat. My bro-in-law was a qualified electronics engineer and worked nearly all his adult life in the aviation business. Valves (all valves) by definition overheat. End of.

 

[CJSF]

I did notice a question mark over 'valve information delivery compared to solid state'? At least as good, probably better but diferant. Valves have a delicacy and involvement that is hard to find in a like transistor amp. Its a question that needs looking at in relation to method and set up of retreval and personal tast. In my experiance, £ for £, no contest in favour of valves, but then I'm biased aint I . . . and all IMHO of course.

I supose there is still old fashoned thinking that valves are wolly and warm sounding, not these days, 'wooly' has gone, warm is still there if you want it but its depends on the rest of the system and that 'personal tast' again.

CJSF

I think it's a great shame that Valve amps don't make it onto more people's demo list.....if they did. I suspect there would be a much greater demand. The technology might be old, but soundwise, they've come a long way.

It isa great shame but there are reasons:

1) Can't find a good budget example.

2) Contrary to a lot of valve fanboys views they need easy load speakers. I'm sure there are some exceptions, but generally that holds true.

3) To hear a valve amp at its best they need a warm up period.

4) They tend to overheat quicker than SS amp. Limited listening window.

5) And most importantly, unless you go very high end like Graaf they are totally fugly.

Before any of the fanboys whinge about the overheating aspect, they DO overheat. My bro-in-law was a qualified electronics engineer and worked nearly all his adult life in the aviation business. Valves (all valves) by definition overheat. End of.

1) The Croft Hybrid intigrated is a great example of quality, making the best of valves and SS at a starting price of £850, matching or even out performes many amps SS or Valve at almost twice the price, walks all over comparably priced offerings. This is not my personal view, it is well documentd in the media and on line, if you are looking at £1000, you should make an effort to hear a Croft Hybrid.

2) My speakers are not easy loads, PMC LB1 circa early 90's, look them up. They are at the end of 8m of cable and I run my amps in triode mode = 20w!!!!

3) Yep about 45 minuites, dont find it a hardship, sounds OK even at swith on. I thought SS state needed warm up, is it right, Naim recomend not switching off on some of their gear??

4) Overheating, I run my S40 all day some times, even all day and into the night, 2 - 3 o'clock in the morning, neaver had over heating problems, me thinks you might have been dealing with 'cheap or poorly designed kit', yes they proably DO over heat, anything that gets hot, by its nature needs cooling? I ran mine today from 2pm untill 7pm, dinner time, then on again at 10.30pm, still listening at this moment, its Horlicks hour :cheers: Incidently I used to in the 80's and 90's run EAR 509's, they would run all day on evaluation on new product. All day and evening at HiFi shows, nothing hotter than a show room, never experianced any problems in those days either.

5) High end, depends what you call high end, as said, Croft is a good starting point.

. . . . :? One iritation out of 5 aint bad, and that aint a deal breaker IMHO . . . Sadly PP, you have a seriously biased view of modern valve amps.

CJSF (Mr Horlicks :shifty: )

 

[plastic penguin]

I did notice a question mark over 'valve information delivery compared to solid state'? At least as good, probably better but diferant. Valves have a delicacy and involvement that is hard to find in a like transistor amp. Its a question that needs looking at in relation to method and set up of retreval and personal tast. In my experiance, £ for £, no contest in favour of valves, but then I'm biased aint I . . . and all IMHO of course.

I supose there is still old fashoned thinking that valves are wolly and warm sounding, not these days, 'wooly' has gone, warm is still there if you want it but its depends on the rest of the system and that 'personal tast' again.

CJSF

I think it's a great shame that Valve amps don't make it onto more people's demo list.....if they did. I suspect there would be a much greater demand. The technology might be old, but soundwise, they've come a long way.

It isa great shame but there are reasons:

1) Can't find a good budget example.

2) Contrary to a lot of valve fanboys views they need easy load speakers. I'm sure there are some exceptions, but generally that holds true.

3) To hear a valve amp at its best they need a warm up period.

4) They tend to overheat quicker than SS amp. Limited listening window.

5) And most importantly, unless you go very high end like Graaf they are totally fugly.

Before any of the fanboys whinge about the overheating aspect, they DO overheat. My bro-in-law was a qualified electronics engineer and worked nearly all his adult life in the aviation business. Valves (all valves) by definition overheat. End of.

1) The Croft Hybrid intigrated is a great example of quality, making the best of valves and SS at a starting price of £850, matching or even out performes many amps SS or Valve at almost twice the price, walks all over comparably priced offerings. This is not my personal view, it is well documentd in the media and on line, if you are looking at £1000, you should make an effort to hear a Croft Hybrid.

2) My speakers are not easy loads, PMC LB1 circa early 90's, look them up. They are at the end of 8m of cable and I run my amps in triode mode = 20w!!!!

3) Yep about 45 minuites, dont find it a hardship, sounds OK even at swith on. I thought SS state needed warm up, is it right, Naim recomend not switching off on some of their gear??

4) Overheating, I run my S40 all day some times, even all day and into the night, 2 - 3 o'clock in the morning, neaver had over heating problems, me thinks you might have been dealing with 'cheap or poorly designed kit', yes they proably DO over heat, anything that gets hot, by its nature needs cooling? I ran mine today from 2pm untill 7pm, dinner time, then on again at 10.30pm, still listening at this moment, its Horlicks hour :cheers: Incidently I used to in the 80's and 90's run EAR 509's, they would run all day on evaluation on new product. All day and evening at HiFi shows, nothing hotter than a show room, never experianced any problems in those days either.

5) High end, depends what you call high end, as said, Croft is a good starting point.

. . . . :? One iritation out of 5 aint bad, and that aint a deal breaker IMHO . . . Sadly PP, you have a seriously biased view of modern valve amps.

CJSF (Mr Horlicks :shifty: )

Is £800 strictly a budget price?

I gave a high end example of Graaf amps, which retail around £4000 starting price.

No, have absolutely nothing against the SQ of valve amps, just the practical issues. Yes the Arcam and Leema sound stonking from the second you switch it on.

I expect you to be biased in favour of valve amps, and no amount of reviews will convince me otherwise. Why should it?

Put yourself in my shoes: would you rather believe a few valve amp owners or a qualified technician who worked for the M.O.D. designing radar systems, with a budget of multi-billions of pounds?

 

[Sir Lemon]

I was intending to keep the speakers Ive got at the moment. I certainly don't mind a bit of a tinker about. I need to find a dealer who can demo some valve options alongside the Cyrus stuff in Essex

Well, if that's the case, you should look into Electrocompaniet gear, Hegel as well, both of whom pair very well with B&W speakers. Personally, I've only heard the Electrocompaniet & B&W combo, and it's been a while since that happened (years), but I remember liking them a lot.
I've also been demoing stuff for almost two months now (looking to put together a system myself) and heard Electrocompaniet & Cabasse, which I liked (and also 3DLab & Cabasse, which I liked even more).

If you're seriously looking into valve amps, you should probably visit G Point Audio, they bring a lot of high quality stuff from Eastern Europe, gear that is usually priced better than its western equivalents.

Enjoy! And let us know how it's going with the demos.

 

[BigH]

I think it's a great shame that Valve amps don't make it onto more people's demo list.....if they did. I suspect there would be a much greater demand. The technology might be old, but soundwise, they've come a long way.

The problem is not many dealers stock valves amp. because of lack of demand, I'm sure if the main dealers stocked them then more people would demo them.

How about reliability?

 

[BigH]

I was intending to keep the speakers Ive got at the moment. I certainly don't mind a bit of a tinker about. I need to find a dealer who can demo some valve options alongside the Cyrus stuff in Essex

Good luck with that, I think the only Cyrus dealers in Essex are Audio T and 7 Oaks, don't think they have valve amps. Only Essex dealer that I know that has valve amps is Radlett near Saffron Walden.

 

[floyd droid]

How about reliability?

Well you go into valves with the knowledge that one day,maybe, something will go phut. But hey, lets say I have a small signal valve go down ?. Well I just nail another in for pennies. What happens when your trannie job goes down ?. Modern valve amps are pretty reliable H, you get the odd fly in the ointment but isnt that the case with solid state anyhoo.

 

[drummerman]

Put yourself in my shoes: would you rather believe a few valve amp owners or a qualified technician who worked for the M.O.D. designing radar systems, with a budget of multi-billions of pounds?

Mmmmh, wonder where I heard similar in the past

I think, unless you have owned/auditioned one/a few of the better ones of the breed, it will be pure guessing on your behalf. Still, you made your point, quite a few times.

regards

 

[BigH]

How about reliability?

Well you go into valves with the knowledge that one day,maybe, something will go phut. But hey, lets say I have a small signal valve go down ?. Well I just nail another in for pennies. What happens when your trannie job goes down ?. Modern valve amps are pretty reliable H, you get the odd fly in the ointment but isnt that the case with solid state anyhoo.

Ive had SS amps for over 40 years never had a problem and 1 is about 20 years old. Never had a valve amp but are don't the valves only have a 6 month warranty, last report I read of someone buying one, he had to send it back to the dealer who had it for 6 weeks sorting it out.

 

[floyd droid]

It isa great shame but there are reasons:

1) Can't find a good budget example.

2) Contrary to a lot of valve fanboys views they need easy load speakers. I'm sure there are some exceptions, but generally that holds true.

3) To hear a valve amp at its best they need a warm up period.

4) They tend to overheat quicker than SS amp. Limited listening window.

5) And most importantly, unless you go very high end like Graaf they are totally fugly.

1. Budget valve amps will generaly be carp , if you can pick one up with one hand it will be carp. Good transformers are ruddy heavy and need to be to do the job properly. They cost money !!.

2. Hmmm, sorry PP I disagree mate.

3. From firing up mine , and I have a few , sound excellent. Tisnt 1953 anymore.

4. When your solid state jobbie gets too hot and shuts down, valve amps just get on with it. Dunno where you got that nugget from.

5. Erm , they do come in boxes so the valves aint on view ya know. Copland /Audio Note / Canor, to name but three.

How many valve amps have you owned PP ?.

 

[floyd droid]

Never had a valve amp but are don't the valves only have a 6 month warranty, last report I read of someone buying one, he had to send it back to the dealer who had it for 6 weeks sorting it out.

6 months warranty ? , doubt that very much H. As far as I know its the dealer who has to support the warranty , so he should have got his ar*e in gear.

 

[plastic penguin]

It isa great shame but there are reasons:

1) Can't find a good budget example.

2) Contrary to a lot of valve fanboys views they need easy load speakers. I'm sure there are some exceptions, but generally that holds true.

3) To hear a valve amp at its best they need a warm up period.

4) They tend to overheat quicker than SS amp. Limited listening window.

5) And most importantly, unless you go very high end like Graaf they are totally fugly.

1. Budget valve amps will generaly be carp , if you can pick one up with one hand it will be carp. Good transformers are ruddy heavy and need to be to do the job properly. They cost money !!.

2. Hmmm, sorry PP I disagree mate.

3. From firing up mine , and I have a few , sound excellent. Tisnt 1953 anymore.

4. When your solid state jobbie gets too hot and shuts down, valve amps just get on with it. Dunno where you got that nugget from.

5. Erm , they do come in boxes so the valves aint on view ya know. Copland /Audio Note / Canor, to name but three.

How many valve amps have you owned PP ?.

A valve is a valve whether it's in a home amp or million pound radar/defence system. Sure they're different sizes but they all do one thing.