Heresys are nice and efficient and really love tubes, but sound surprisingly good with a little Tripath TA2020 T-Amp like an Amptastic or Temple Audio. They also sound fine with a Quad 303 and I bet they would with Sugden class A too. Avoid lean and dry flat earth stuff though as they date from the tube era and sound really nasty on a lot of solid state stuff to my ears. I heard them with Naim once and it was not pretty!
A Majik isn't really early Linn. Have you heard one? It's a very different sound to the LK1/2. I can't get on with those myself but as a budget buy, I do rather like the Majik. I suggested that as a very affordable unit because it's very quiet and has perfect channel balance throughout the volume range and had plenty of usable volume range... which is pretty handy with sensitive speakers.Anything but Linn!! Early Linn amps are about the worst sounding solid state amps I have ever heard.
Heresys are nice and efficient and really love tubes, but sound surprisingly good with a little Tripath TA2020 T-Amp
So make them better! ;-)
PS Early on I’m inclined to agree, I jumped ship from the ‘flat earth’ thing when Linn and Naim went their separate ways; I really liked the band but not the solo acts!
The nearest I tried to that was an original clam-shell Rega Brio, which neither shone nor offended, kind of ‘meh’ in this particular context and I’d certainly take a T-Amp over it. Do not underestimate the little T-Amps, they really do work very well with Klipsch, they are probably what I would choose if tubes really are not an option. I’ve made the case several times on pfm that a pair of Heresys, Cornwalls or La Scalas and one of these little <£100 amps is actually a pretty good way of spending that budget, i.e. turning the source first thing right on its head! The T-Amps are very clean, clear open and pure sounding over their first couple of Watts and have a reputation of sounding quite SET-like, which I can believe. A couple of Watts is all you ever need with classic Klipsch.
Definitely, they don't need a great deal of power. A quiet, non hissy/humming design is much more important than power output.Sugden A21 could suit.... maybe even original A21 if a valve like sound is wanted. With that efficiency a 10WPC class A amp should do great.
Tony,
Does the Amptastic TA2020 have a good ''balanced'' sound?