tubes and rock and roll, good fit?

Dude,

Tubes, shmubes. In the league you are playing in with that gear you own and are considering, it shouldn't matter. It all should sound fantastic all the time as long as the pieces are matched to work well together and to the listening room and your taste.

I thought the same with the Altairs + tubes but perhaps it does't matter with a monstrous tube amp like that VTL. If it were me, I'd be concerned going in, not just about sound quality, but reliability of a big tube amp like that driving a 4 ohm or less load. You might end up yearning for the good old simple days of care free SS amplification.

I'd listen to them together first before jumping for sure though, especially if rock with maximum possible impact is a desire! You are using big Krells now I believe? That should be hard to beat I would think!

How about setting up a less expensive second system in another room built around tube gear? Then you can live with it for a while and compare before making a big change that you may or may not regret later? If your room is smaller in particular, you may not need to spend near as much to get to a similar level of performance as your main system.

I've dabbled with the idea of moving to a tube amp in my system, but I have determined their is little or nothing to gain. I think my situation is analogous to yours regarding tube amps because I wouldn't even consider it if I did not think tubes amps could do R&R to the max and we both have speakers that are not inherently tube friendly due to less than optimal impedance specifications to match to a tube amp. Then there is the maintenance and reliability issue which might be exacerbated with many tube amps being asked to drive a load they are not designed to do.

I think tubes and SS are both equally capable of doing R&R to the max. You need to match the amp to speakers first however, as Tvad indicated first early on.

If you are tired of the Krell and want to change (nothing wrong with that) but stay with your current speakers, then moving to a tube amp may be risky and harder to accomplish properly for the reasons already mentioned. If you are prepared to perhaps change speakers later as well in order to get the optimal match to a tube amp for R&R, then more power to you.

Even if someone comes back and says that the vtl tube amp sounds great with your speakers for R&R, that does not assure that things are optimal or even that you will think the same.

Bottom line: if you want to stay with your speakers, I'd be looking towards a different SS amp if you must. If you are willing to risk possibly have to change speakers afterwards in order to get the best performance possible, then go ahead and find a good powerful tube amp that is designed to drive 4 ohm loads optimally. That is the thing that may prove difficult or perhaps even impossible. Specs may insdicate the ability to drive 4 ohms but is it the optimal configuration for that amp? For a top notch system like yours, this could matter, Most good SS amps should be inherently capable, so you will have many choices as Audiofeil indicated.

Pryso, I think musicians/bands often use tube amps as a means of introducing distortion in a controlled manner which is easier achieved with tubes than SS.

Same is true with use of tubes in home audio gear, but the goals of the listener of a home system is generally to avoid certain distortions, not apply it, which is different. BOth tubes and SS can accomplish this if done properly, whereas tubes are much better suited for introducing distortion into an electric guitar, etc.

Never a bad idea to look at what the speaker's designer uses....

Gryphon is SS, no?

I'd call Rockport and see what he says about running his product off any particular tube amp.

Lucky guy!

Let us know how it turns out!

I agree that tube pre-amp + Class D amp is a very effective way to introduce tubes into a system with speakers that are not designed to be tube friendly (low efficiency, low impedance).