With your budget and speakers look at Quicksilver pre and their KT monos. The pre will best your Rogue and their KT’s are now 100 watts. Rogue recommends rolling NOS Mullards in the small tubes. I much prefer Telefunkens and Siemens as they are considerably cleaner and more open. Your current KT 120’s are great for making power, however the new production Gold Lion KT 88 and KT 66’s are sweet. But for the long haul consider the Quicksilver gear or the new PL although it’s slightly over your budget. Happy Hunting, Mike B.
Amp Upgrade Path?
Or maybe the question should be: What am I missing? I'm relatively new to the tube world. About a year and a half ago I bought a used Rogue CM1 (KT120 power tubes) and have steadily upgraded sources and cables....and enjoying it very much.
I'm at what I guess I would call full circle again...meaning my sources are here to stay for the immediate near future and I'm back to thinking speakers and amps.
As I gather, different power tubes have different sonic signatures and I just don't have a reference to what that means.
Is a Prima Luna better then a CM1?
maybe an Air Tight?
And then there is configuration: Power amp with a preamp? Mono Blocks and a preamp?....or stay with an integrated.....
The major short fall of the CM1 (imho) was the phono stage. This was corrected by a EAR 834P mm/mc phono stage. Analog source is a Nottingham 294 Space deck w/ a Lyra cart....w/ Acoustic Zen Matrix interconnects - thank you Audiogon for getting me there.
Thanks for all recommendations
Budget: let's say 5K new or used