best budget integrated amp?

[RGA]

RGA I get a kick out of you. You sure like to type. I wonder if you are the same about other aspects of your life. If you like single malt scotch must I also like it. Do I have to work to develop a taste for it. Just for point of fact and not point of argument I do like single malt.

My point being I have heard two tube amps and was not impressed. I have a solid state integrated amp that I enjoy and presents the music as I like it and as it sounds to me at concerts. I have to ask why you think I need to try other tube amps. I neither have the time nor the interest. Why would I shop for something in which I have no interest. No need to further try and lure anyone to the tube side. Enjoy what you enjoy but the rest of us are not wrong.

This is an audiophile forum - let's take your food example - if you hate the taste of scotch then it probably doesn't matter which scotch you try you will hate it.

But stereo equipment as an analogy to beverage or food you have to try and make a better one. It's not like a guy who likes wine is the tube guy and the guy who likes SS is a Scotch guy - it's not that far apart.

Tubes have a much wider range of sonic types - based around the tube. An EL 84 based tube amp doesn't sound the same as an EL 34 based amp or a KT 88. There are plenty of tube guys who hate the sound of some of these output tubes.

Personally I do my best to ignore the design cause I really don't care - Technical Brain impressed me, Sugden and Heed impressed me and they're all solid state. I would buy these over plenty of tube designs - I am not a slave to the design.

Having said that however, the best amps I have heard in virtually every price class has been SE, and with little to no feedback (whether SS or tube). The blind tests would indicate this as well - and it's pretty obvious as well since everyone who makes the comparisons that I know always choose it as the designers of all those top SS makers illustrated when they chose a no feedback amp over their own design and why the Sugden A21a has won every blind test it's been in - again with manufacturers sitting in the listening chairs.

An analogy with scotch doesn't work. It has to be something where there is a same general classification - wine makes more sense to me but I am not a wine guy so I can't make a good analogy of that.

I would use hamburgers - McIntosh may be a McDonalds double 1/4 pounder with cheese - lots of beef but will like give you the craps. But lots of SS amps are also McDonalds level burgers

A better than average SS amp may be a quality burger at Earls or proper restaurants where it's not sitting in a warmer for an hour.

If you are going to fairly compare amplfiers or burgers you can't compare McDonalds grade stuff to Gordon Ramsey level burgers which will like be a steak between home baked buns.

My argument here is more on the absolute top end of the range. At normal prices I can find good SS amps - but after a certain point Tubes take over and really they don't have competitors in SS. Even with high power demands as there are 800Watt+ per channel tube amps out there.

Like I say - an audiophile forum suggests that people are interested in audio gear - so I assume that people are interested in trying more than two tube amplifiers. And personally I could care less if you never want to try another one - but don't think for a second because you tried two you have any clue what you're talking about when you start dumping on tube amps. I dislike a lot of tube amps as well - so I am not terribly surprised but it would be like me trying a Crowne and Sony receiver and saying - all SS sucks because those amps were atrocious. I will never audition another SS amp because I heard those two and that represents the technology fairly. C'mon - it's an audiophile forum - the point is to try stuff out.

I was judging some technologies myself unfairly until I heard some of the better examples of it. And Tube amps are in no way shape or form the same as SET amps. My amp comes in a Push Pull version with more feedback - sounds good but completely outclassed by the SE version. But then it's about half the price so that's fine.

[JohnMichael]

Like I say - an audiophile forum suggests that people are interested in audio gear - so I assume that people are interested in trying more than two tube amplifiers. And personally I could care less if you never want to try another one - but don't think for a second because you tried two you have any clue what you're talking about when you start dumping on tube amps.

I do not dump on tube amps I just have not enjoyed any I have heard. So I am looking no further. You dump much more on SS so get down from the soap box and let people like what they like. You are boring me.

[RGA]

I do not dump on tube amps I just have not enjoyed any I have heard. So I am looking no further. You dump much more on SS so get down from the soap box and let people like what they like. You are boring me.

You auditioned 2 tube amps.

I have heard well over 100 Solid state amps. You have no idea if you would enjoy tube amps based on hearing 2 of them (especially when the noted McIntosh line-up has a huge number of detractors within the tube fandom world) just as any tube die hard could not dismiss Solid State by hearing just two.

Just like there are many different tube designs there are many different SS designs - is the SS a single ended design, is it class A, A/B, B (Naim), Class T, is it DC coupled - what kind of transformers. And then what about the hybrids?

The fact is a Krell sounds a LOT closer to a $400 Rotel than a $400 tube amp will sound to a $3000 tube amp. And yet SS guys dole money out for tiny little subtle improvements (none of which they could hear in a blind audition) and dump on Rotel and rave about Krell. But they'll audition 2 tube amps which can have wildly different sonic attributes? What the hell is that? One of the reasons I don't like a lot of SS is the very reason that expensive SS tends to sound too much like a $150 Crown amps I can buy in a pawn shop. It's irritating to spend so much on something that sounds a lot like very cheap audio. Tube amps show dramatic improvements over lower priced kit.

This is not unlike CD replay - same small improvements - going from a $300 cartridge to a $1000 cartridge is a beyond belief improvement - $1000 cd player versus $300 cd player - meh - it's better but it's mostly never beyond belief and in a blind test - well most "fail" - with the cartridges - no one fails they always choose the $1000 cartridge. In other words I want massive upgrades (and I want to hear them - not just see the dollars I spent and assume it's better) for my bucks.

Any given design can beat out others - I liked the Heed amps for under $3000 as well as Sugden - both are Solid State and wildly different from each other.

I even get people who like Bryston - I liked it too - as I said I nearly bought one that's how much I liked it. But I also liked it so much because I only heard umm two tube amplifiers - a Copland and later McIntosh. To me Bryston is a fine place to start out in this hobby - but there is way more out there and the more you hear the less well it held up.

[JohnMichael]

You auditioned 2 tube amps.

I have heard well over 100 Solid state amps. You have no idea if you would enjoy tube amps based on hearing 2 of them (especially when the noted McIntosh line-up has a huge number of detractors within the tube fandom world) just as any tube die hard could not dismiss Solid State by hearing just two.

Just like there are many different tube designs there are many different SS designs - is the SS a single ended design, is it class A, A/B, B (Naim), Class T, is it DC coupled - what kind of transformers. And then what about the hybrids?

The fact is a Krell sounds a LOT closer to a $400 Rotel than a $400 tube amp will sound to a $3000 tube amp. And yet SS guys dole money out for tiny little subtle improvements (none of which they could hear in a blind audition) and dump on Rotel and rave about Krell. But they'll audition 2 tube amps which can have wildly different sonic attributes? What the hell is that? One of the reasons I don't like a lot of SS is the very reason that expensive SS tends to sound too much like a $150 Crown amps I can buy in a pawn shop. It's irritating to spend so much on something that sounds a lot like very cheap audio. Tube amps show dramatic improvements over lower priced kit.

This is not unlike CD replay - same small improvements - going from a $300 cartridge to a $1000 cartridge is a beyond belief improvement - $1000 cd player versus $300 cd player - meh - it's better but it's mostly never beyond belief and in a blind test - well most "fail" - with the cartridges - no one fails they always choose the $1000 cartridge. In other words I want massive upgrades (and I want to hear them - not just see the dollars I spent and assume it's better) for my bucks.

Any given design can beat out others - I liked the Heed amps for under $3000 as well as Sugden - both are Solid State and wildly different from each other.

I even get people who like Bryston - I liked it too - as I said I nearly bought one that's how much I liked it. But I also liked it so much because I only heard umm two tube amplifiers - a Copland and later McIntosh. To me Bryston is a fine place to start out in this hobby - but there is way more out there and the more you hear the less well it held up.

I have said my peace and I am finished with this thread.

[bobsticks]

An analogy with scotch doesn't work. It has to be something where there is a same general classification - wine makes more sense to me but I am not a wine guy so I can't make a good analogy of that.

I would use hamburgers - McIntosh may be a McDonalds double 1/4 pounder with cheese - lots of beef but will like give you the craps. But lots of SS amps are also McDonalds level burgers

a) That's just disingenuous and you know it.
b) Clearly you have no culinary skills.

[RGA]

Deleted