rescuest3ve
pfm Member
So my love/hate relationship with low-powered valve amps looks like it's run its full course and has concluded: its 60/40 in favour of hate. In the last two years I have had to send two high-end amps off to be fixed in some capacity a total of FIVE times. FIVE ****** times. At a total layout maybe £1000.
The amps in question are an Audio Note OTO SE phono and a New Audio Frontiers 2a3 Performance; both, when working, capable of absolutely wonderful music-making. And so they should at a combined RRP of perhaps £14k. 14 ****** thousand. Now, they were both bought second hand at a price considerably lower than that, but one would think that just two pieces of electronic equipment that cost the same as a deposit on a house when new would be good for many a moon; and whilst you can never be sure of the usage before you pick it up, one would hope to get a few years out of them? Well not I.
I estimate I've probably had 100 hours total across the two units? Genuinely, the NAF integrated has spent more time at the engineers than with me (mainly due to Covid, but still...) and now I've just had enough. I'm going to have it fixed one last time, then trading the beautiful bastard in for a NEW solid state amp. You know the type: something that will just... Work.
So does anyone have any recommendations for a solid state that sounds like a thoroughbred SET but will actually last me a few years? My speakers are Audio Note An-Es, which I love and aren't going, so I'm thinking low-powered and maybe class A. I've seen very good things written about Pass Labs, so if like to put them on the shortlist of auditions. Anything else?
Cheers
The amps in question are an Audio Note OTO SE phono and a New Audio Frontiers 2a3 Performance; both, when working, capable of absolutely wonderful music-making. And so they should at a combined RRP of perhaps £14k. 14 ****** thousand. Now, they were both bought second hand at a price considerably lower than that, but one would think that just two pieces of electronic equipment that cost the same as a deposit on a house when new would be good for many a moon; and whilst you can never be sure of the usage before you pick it up, one would hope to get a few years out of them? Well not I.
I estimate I've probably had 100 hours total across the two units? Genuinely, the NAF integrated has spent more time at the engineers than with me (mainly due to Covid, but still...) and now I've just had enough. I'm going to have it fixed one last time, then trading the beautiful bastard in for a NEW solid state amp. You know the type: something that will just... Work.
So does anyone have any recommendations for a solid state that sounds like a thoroughbred SET but will actually last me a few years? My speakers are Audio Note An-Es, which I love and aren't going, so I'm thinking low-powered and maybe class A. I've seen very good things written about Pass Labs, so if like to put them on the shortlist of auditions. Anything else?
Cheers