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Recommended Tube Amp for ML CLS I model

Happy holidays!

I've just acquired a pair of CLS I speakers with recent panel upgrade. I know this speaker is supposed to be tube friendly (higher impedance) and the easiest to drive of the CLS range. I am very familiar with the IIz model, but that has very different characteristics from what I understand.

I'm looking to pair a good tube amp with these speakers, to be driven by a Tact 2.2 Mini digital preamp that will be configured to send lower frequency signal to a REL sub and a time-aligned mid / upper signal to the CLS via a Tube amp. (I used a similar setup with an Accuphase DF-35 Digital dividing network and CLS IIz and REL - the Tact is a cheaper option if you just need to 2-way xover division). The digital discussion can take place in another thread.

For now, I am looking for a good tube amp to drive the CLS I model. Since the digitally split signal will be sans deep bass, low frequency performance is not a high priority. So far, I'm looking at ARC VT130SE and VT150 monos (both nice, but a lot of negative feedback used), Rogue Zeus (triode mode), ARC VT100, ARC VS115, Atma-Sphere OTL (with autoformer?), etc.

Any recommendations from those familiar with the original CLS?

TIA!
fdriver

Showing 1 response by atmasphere

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,566 posts
 
The CLS 1 is a very different animal from succeeding CLS models. It is a lot higher impedance and is easily driven by tubes. This is not the case with the later versions.

Our MA-1 is a 'match made in heaven' on the CLS 1 according to our customers. We don't have much experience with our smaller amplifier models on the speaker as it was discontinued early on.

However several of our customers have commented to us that M-L still has all the parts for the speaker, and one of our customers actually bought a set of them and built his own 'CLS 1s'. It seemed that they ran fine with his M-60s, but as that is the only case I know of; I feel like we don't have enough statistics to say more.

It would be my *guess* that the S-30 would need a set of ZEROs to accommodate the high frequencies, but one would have to try it to see.
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