Valve Amp for Sonus Faber Sonetto IIIs

@grauerbar

You have a couple of very nice Italian amplifiers under consideration. Given your taste in music I think that you would be happy with a good quality and well implemented tube amplifier.

I found a review of your speakers and it seems that they’re a fairly easy speaker load according to the reviewer.Paired well with both Their solid state and tube amplifiers. So the speakers appear to be a plausible possibility with your amplifiers of interest.

It’s doable, but if you’re going a pure tube amp it’ll cost some $$$ because you don’t wanna push an amp to near its power limits as you won’t get optimal performance. Good, higher-power tube amps cost $$$. You might get by with a Rogue Chronus Magnum, but a hybrid like the Unison Unico line or Rogue Pharaoh/Sphinx might be a best-of-both-worlds compromise. If I was you, I’d take a hard look at this Unison Unico Due that might be just the ticket…

https://www.ebay.com/itm/364023473071

If you’ve got the budget, the Octave V70SE is another one really worth looking into…

https://www.dedicatedaudio.com/products/octave-v70se-tube-integrated-amplifier
Here’s a review fyi…

https://www.soundstageultra.com/index.php/equipment-menu/423-octave-audio-v-70-se-integrated-amplifier

Best of luck in your search. 

Audio research is excellent, but for those speakers and a preference for classical music I would urge you to consider Rogue Audio, either their integrated amps or the RP9 and Apollo monos.  From personal experience, the Rogues work well with SF speakers.

I agree that a hybrid amplifier is a safe compromise choice. I just think that those Sonus Faber speakers will absolutely sing to the heavens driving by a high quality pure tube output. I’m bias with regard to tube amplifiers. 😊

Charles 

Of that group I'd go with the Synthesis Roma I am currently running their Encore, an older 6L6/5881 amp and it sounds very good. I also heard a pair of Synthesis KT66 monos at CAF sounding wonderful powering new Dolce Vita hornspeakers.