Tax Return spending spree.?? Amp and Pre tube amp or solid state?

[jamie2112]

I am thinking of getting an emotiva X-P 5 amp. But then again I also was looking at a tube amp as well. I also want to get a nice pre as I am switching to separates for my large room. I don't want to spend over 1400 dollars. Any suggestions would be helpful. This would mainly be for music and maybe a dvd or 2. I don't have a whole lot of use to hear movies back in 5.1 in my music room. So I will watch movies on 2.1 when I do watch a movie.Thanks ANy suggestions would be great.

 

[bandphan]

which speakers are you using with the tube and what are their eff rating? IMO i would go with a tube pre and leave the amp solid state, If its the "sound" your looking for. Ive used a music fidelity x can tube dac in the past and it added some warmth to the sound. If your really into the tube thing, look into older gear. You might want to send Hifihoney a pm and discuss your thoughts with him, as he could give you some better direction on this. If you look for some of the older kits on ebay, you could pick up some gear and do some tinkering as the schematics were not overly complicated.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Dynaco-Stereo-ST70-ST-70-Tube-Power-Amp_W0QQitemZ220218392879QQihZ012QQcategoryZ50593QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[fmw]

I just got both in a single unit. It has a tube preamp and a solid state power amp. It also has 11 samples to model the sound of 11 different famous amps. Heck, it even has digital signal processing with things like chorus, reverb, wah-wah, delay. All sorts of great stuff. Only $250.