CJ premier 8 - please share your comments

One of the great tube amplifiers from any manufacturer, and one of the best amps C-J ever designed. A true classic. Extremely well made, with high quality parts, and very reliable. C-J still provides complete tube sets.

These should be a very nice match to your Avalons, with tremendous bass authority and still with that wonderful C-J midrange naturalness. These are competitive with any large tube amp made today (but without the ultimate transparency and speed only available from OTLs). And, when wired in triode (the 8XS model as delivered from the factory) these are absolutely stunning but at about 1/2 of the output power.
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Fernando,

I would agree with all of your listening observations, with the exception that I am puzzled by two: I would have expected superb soundstaging from the Premier 8 and at least very good dynamic handling, with perhaps better microdynamics than macro. But, as always you have to make the choice based on what you hear in your system, and where your listening priorities fall.

Thanks for sharing your observations! Just goes to show that Pass Labs gear is well designed and executed.

In the bass, you may be hearing room interaction more than a characteristic of the Premier 8s, assuming your speakers are still positioned as shown in your system picture. With the Premier 8s, you may have not "boominess" but actually more accurate and fully fleshed out bass that is now revealing that the speakers are too close to side and rear walls, or that the distances should be more different one from the other than now. Having the speakers right in the corner, as shown in the picture, will not be kind to a smooth bass response. If you have enough width, try moving each speaker towards the center by 6-12" and see what happens to the bass.
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Fernando, it seems that you do indeed have a good grasp of the differences between these two amps. I don't think I can help you any further on the choice you need to make; that choice will depend on your listening/sonic priorities.

As you say, the Premier 8 is not neutral in the way of the Pass, nor is it a classically tubey sound. There are some other tube amplifiers that are more neutral and that may have greater bass control (examples, Atma-Sphere MA-1/MA-2 OTLs, BAT 150se, C-J Premier 140), but that is not your consideration today.
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One way to get this estimate would be to check with C-J on the current cost of their replacement tube set: RTPR8 (with 6550 output tubes):
703-698-8581 or [email protected]
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The "guys at AA" either don't know what they're talking about or they have some other agenda: pure poppycock as to any difficulty. If the caution is over cost of retubing vis-a-vis a solid state amp, sure, there will be more cost over the life of the amp due to retubing.
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Thanks for the update, Fernando. Congratulations! And welcome to the land of tubes! (I would have nothing else in my system for exactly the reason you mention: musicality. Tubes continue to do for me what solid state just cannot begin to touch.)
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