WHY NOT VALVES

[bigrod]

You couldn’t make it up sometimes in this dwelling
Last weekend at our bake off we had one or 2 valve amps on display ..
DIANE 🥰 LOVED THE LOOK OF GLOWING VALVES ..
Anyway she said why don’t I get a valve amp in place of the Vincent “ over Xmas” “ Be very festive looking for Xmas”
I said it’s already got lights with the VU meters which you can change the colour of with a switch at the rear .

No1 , I know nothing about valves and valve rolling , tubes . Power output F all really ..
No 1, It’s got to look like the Pathos integrated with the wood bits at the front to match the cabinet
3 . It’s got to work with the Cabasse Kara’s
4 ,not get too hot

Recommendations second hand ?
no more than £2 grand budget

 

[Amormusic]

Buy a valve amp to look festive for Christmas. Wow! Your wife is a keeper 👍.

That's my dream sentence my Mrs is unlikely to ever say 🤣

 

[Lurch]

You couldn’t make it up sometimes in this dwelling
Last weekend at our bake off we had one or 2 valve amps on display ..
DIANE 🥰 LOVED THE LOOK OF GLOWING VALVES ..
Anyway she said why don’t I get a valve amp in place of the Vincent “ over Xmas” “ Be very festive looking for Xmas”
I said it’s already got lights with the VU meters which you can change the colour of with a switch at the rear .

No1 , I know nothing about valves and valve rolling , tubes . Power output F all really ..
No 1, It’s got to look like the Pathos integrated with the wood bits at the front to match the cabinet
3 . It’s got to work with the Cabasse Kara’s
4 ,not get too hot

Recommendations second hand ?
no more than £2 grand budget

Here you go Julian. No need for it to look like a Pathos, because it IS a Pathos, and near as damn it, in budget. 😁
https://hifiwigwam.com/forum/threads/pathos-logos-mkii-amplifier.107504/

 

[bigrod]

Here you go Julian. No need for it to look like a Pathos, because it IS a Pathos, and near as damn it, in budget. 😁
https://hifiwigwam.com/forum/threads/pathos-logos-mkii-amplifier.107504/

That’s integrated

 

[Lurch]

That’s integrated

If its just a power amp/s you want for crimbo why not just grab, mine back off of Rick? That way there's no pennies leaving your wallet, then he can have them back in time to bring them down to Southampton.
Otherwise most valve power amps with wood bits, on tend to be Italian which means £££s. You could always grab a cheap, Chinese one of fleabay and stick a couple of nice wooden cheeks on it.

 

[HouseElf]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/23454915...ya2xhpktt6&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Easily one of the best amps I have owned in the past if you have the right speakers.

On pure sound quality alone I preferred it to the Sugden A21a Signature by a small margin.

 

[toms wait]

I'm not allowed to sell my AI500 because the wife and both daughters like it, I tried a quad pre-power recently and one daughter asked why I had bought a toaster. This was the power amp.
To be fair it did look like one.

 

[toms wait]

to the OP, this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/195470572496?hash=item2d82f43bd0:g:~uMAAOSwrolg72BE&amdata=enc:AQAHAAAAoAD1nWCD64x9FFJv2LQpYTXXtKY3jxE974KDcI9nRYUv5YbZrgcTdvW8yBoDyT84jlE94Mxt/Vz5A8dTuUzD1fwGCY9Y1COcFARg6PLJrCaETldYo1k6AoVm6z3Zddo6Ikzq57Uuts0tAfMey+g2zLv37i49gqPMsm1yKv0GwU90bmgH84wGzg8fhODXfHunUw4Z9VC2NLxKtj3HgBhc1UA=|tkp:Bk9SR9jJvrSWYQ

weirdly no pics, but there's plenty of pics of 2nds on t'internet

 

[toms wait]

Buy a valve amp to look festive for Christmas. Wow! Your wife is a keeper 👍.

That's my dream sentence my Mrs is unlikely to ever say 🤣

Go on try it, go on go on go on...........

 

[tackleberry]

They are a pain in the ass.

 

[rabski]

They don't have to be a pain at all. There are over 30 valves in my normal system and I can't remember the last time I had any valve failure. It's certainly many, many years ago. That said, some designs are more brutal on output valves than others. Same are also built a lot worse than others. Also, some are now old enough to have potential issues if they haven't been looked at. Maybe I'm lucky, but I've had far more issues with solid-state stuff going bang than valve stuff, and mostly valve stuff is a shed-load easier to repair and find parts for.

I don't know hard hard the Cabasse are to drive, but maybe a hybid would suit: valve driver section and a solid-state power stage.

Don't worry about an integrated either. A great many valve integrated amplifiers are just power amps with a volume pot and selector switch, so they're fine as power amps if you wind the volume up flat out and use just one input.

 

[bigrod]

The power amp has got to have a similar footprint as the Vincent 332 which is a hybrid but you don’t see any valves ..
Otherwise it will look lost in the unit …
Definitely Not black !!!!!! Which makes choice a bit limited.
Diane wants “ contemporary look”” with valves
She likes the “idea” of Italian
The Kara’s are rated at 93.5 db at 8ohm load .
Below is the Vincent in situ

 

[Lawrence001]

The power amp has got to have a similar footprint as the Vincent 332 which is a hybrid but you don’t see any valves ..
Otherwise it will look lost in the unit …
Definitely Not black !!!!!! Which makes choice a bit limited.
Diane wants “ contemporary look”” with valves
She likes the “idea” of Italian
The Kara’s are rated at 93.5 db at 8ohm load .
Below is the Vincent in situ

I used to have one of these, in fact it could be my old one. I really liked it and I think it's 40wpc so can drive most speakers to reasonable volume without any fuss.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/13434290...TfoM5DWSmi&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

[Speedracer]

Only 18/20 watts per channel but this little beauty sounded wonderful, & looked even better when the bottles were glowing. Well under your budget too if you could find one.

Art Audio Quintet all chrome version.

 

[Jules_S]

There's a Primaluna Dialogue HP in the classifieds - silver fascia, looks very attractive (says the ex-owner of the same thing but in black!) and I think the footprint is around the same as the Vincent. Give or take. And they sound excellent - should drive your Karas very well.

You'll need to leave that door open when it's running though as they do chuck out some heat, as do most valve power amps. You might want a heatshield in your beautiful unit to prevent discolouration and protect it?

P.S. Diane is an absolute legend! 😁

 

[Ian]

There's an Art Audio something on eBay at the moment. If you'd like to hear a PrimaLuna I'd be happy to pop round. Prologue 5 here, stupidly good. No idea whether it would work, only one way to find out.
This won't meet your aesthetic requirements in any way, but might give an idea of sonics.

 

[Lurch]

Here ya go, and it's silver, think it's also in our classifieds somewhere.
https://audioaddictsforum.com/thread/2569/primaluna-dialogue-premium-power-silver
Look at end, now reduced to £1600

 

[rabski]

PrimaLuna has the major advantage of 'true' auto bias, as they use current sensing and circuitry to automatically adapt bias. Better valve life, reduced maintenance and no need to use perfectly matched valves.

I've never used one, but they do seem to have a good rep for reliability.

 

[Non-Smoking Man]

Some useful contributions.
Not SETs obviously - they would run too hot - so push pull; and not American as they like to hide their valves.
Maybe a World Audio Design? The Art Audio was a good shout from Brook.

The wood facia requirement is a problem, but you could sit the selected amp on a lovely maple, or similar, wood platform. That would help isolate it from that big cabinet.

If I remember correctly the cabinet has doors. What about converting the RH door where the Vincent is, with a part or whole perspex replacement so the 'glowing bottles' are clearly visible? (You could cleverly leave a few discreet gaps in the design for cooling purposes.)

Jack NSM

 

[bigrod]

Diane saw this …any good , it’s got meters !!!