Dynaudio Speakers With Tube Amps


Seasons greeting fellow A'goners.After answering a post in the amp forum I started thinking that we need a thread directly relating the use of Dynaudio speakers with ALL Tube Amplification.To many times I have read how common sense dictates the use of high powered SS amps to drive Dyn's, SOOOO lets hear from everyone using ALL Tube front ends to drive those Dyn's.Specify the model of speaker,Amp (along with it's basic info)as well as a brief description of the sound.I'll kick off:Dynaudio"Audience52SE".Yaqin "MS-34D",42 wpc(Ultralinear)21 wpc(Triode)Pure Class A,EL34 power tubes(Shaguang),NOS Mullard M8100(6J1 equivalents)driver tubes.Sound:Soundstage extends well outside & rearward of the speakers.Deep,tight bass,NO slop(even in Triode mode at normal listening levels) with excellent definition & tone.Sweet mids with nice sheen on strings(especially in Triode mode),no sibilance or chestiness on vocals.Nice weight on piano.Treble can be slightly sharp at LOUD levels(90 db.+).This may be an artifact of speakers that are not close to broke in(about 130 hours at this point)yet OR a combination of the Pure Silver I/C's & Silver Coated Copper Power Cables in my system,I haven't worked it out yet.Thanks for your participation folks.
freediver
I drive my Dynaudio 52SE + Sub20A with a McIntosh C2200 tube preamp and aMC252 SS amp. The sound is enveloping and very realistic. I was using Rotel gear previously and the new Mc gear helped tot ame the overall brightnees, although it was not that bad. I know this is not the answer to your question but wanted to let you know half of the equation.
Hi,
I heard a pair of Dynaudio Special 25's (8" two way) with an Audio research VS55 6550 based tube power amp driving them with an Audio Research SP16 solid state (SS) preamp and a Jolida tubed CD player as the source a few years ago at Soundex in Willow Grove, PA in one of their very large, architecturally and acoustically designed and treated rooms. It was fabulous.

The CD player was the front end (your terms); not the preamp. and certainly not the power amp., since the front end is only the source and the front end never drives the speakers in a separates based system. Usually the only time that the front end drives the speakers is a receiver hooked up to the speakers where the built in AM or FM tuner is the source of an audio signal to reproduce. If a tape deck or turntable or a CD player were connected into the receiver, that or they would be the source(s) along with the AM/FM tuner in the receiver of course.

Driving any brand of speaker that is of average voltage sensitivity, in the high 80's let's say, with a tube power amp or tube integrated amp is fine if it has some kahunas under the hood in terms of current delivery and power supply size and capacitance / storage reserve as the ARC has and then some. Dynaudio is no exception to that guide.

Some speakers simply do not work well with tube power or integrated amps due to their impedance curves or the type of tubes used or the circuitry of the gear, etc.: OTL's especially in certain ways are very "picky".

Hope this helps.