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When I started this project, I’d never had a tube amp in my system, though my preamps have been tubed, as is my current DAC. I avoided valve amps for all the reasons you typically hear; colorations, maintenance, limited power unless the budget is huge, and loose or non-existent bass. But after 18 steady years of solid-state and a nagging disappointment in the lack of synergy (identifiable only over the long-term) that my most recent amp upgrade precipitated in my system, I thought it was time to give the power amp glow a go.

This is the story of my introduction into these unfamiliar waters. It is also my debut in reviewing. Let the reader beware.

The Line-up

*Rogue Audio 88 ($1,400 retail) offers 70 watts per channel in its ultra-linear mode and 35 wpc in triode mode and comes with 6550 output tubes.

*Quicksilver M-60 monoblocks ($2,000) are mint-condition demos delivered by a dealer. They are rated at 60 wpc and I heard them with their stock EL-34s.

*Conrad-Johnson Premier 11a ($3,500) is another demo model from a dealer. It’s rated at 70 wpc and comes with stock 6550s.

Admittedly, a fairer comparison perhaps against the other amps would come if I had used the C-J MV-55, but I was looking for something to control the bottom end of my Dunlavy SC-IIIs and 60 wpc was the minimum I thought they required. And I didn’t I want a unit with plastic/nylon speaker nuts or one that was more sensitive to moderate fluctuations in AC mains voltage. where I live, such fluctuations are common.

The Venue

My listening room is bright and rings when energized too highly. The 16 x 18 foot main space opens into an L (9 x 12) to the right, and rear, of the listener. The Dunlavy SC-IIIs are widely spaced and heavily toed-in along the long wall. The couch (listening position) sits ten feet back with a set of stairs going down into entry immediately behind it. There are many parallel but staggered surfaces behind the couch.

Impressions and Perceptions

C-J Premier 11a

First impressions
Heavy and well-built. Nice design. Spousal-approval factor is high.

Sonically, though, I was initially unimpressed -- so much so that I went about cooking dinner in the next room. Remotely interesting, but not what I expected. No lush tubey sound, no tube roar, bass was ample but clearly not very deep. So much for expectations.

Then, suddenly, some vocals lured me out of the kitchen; I was hearing a palpability I’d never heard in my system before. For the next four hours, I was glued to the couch.

Ensuing generalizations
Microdynamics gave new life to the defunct (as in me, given my nascent interest in the unit’s sound). Dynamic shadings were much more apparent on analogue sources, but impressive in the digital realm as well. Ambience galore; the harmonics seemed quite right. Propulsive: very fast (when called for); the good old toe-tappin’, head-bobbin’ kind of rhythmic accuracy. Cymbals sounded like cymbals (quite unusual in my system) and the leading edges of transients were well defined, indeed. Drums skins were palpable. Trailing edges were easy to follow.

To be more specific: The piano glissandos on Holly Cole’s Temptation [Metro Blue CDP 7243 8 31653 2 2] were articulate, but never scratchy. Pat Barber’s Cafe Blue [Premonition Records PREM-737-2] offered excellent drum timbres, serious ambience, a voice I’d never really heard before, and plucky (imagine that) guitar plucks. Hearts of Space’ Universe 4 [HOS 11203-2] and Liquid Mind’s Slow World [Chuck Wild Records CW 86519-2] are both heavily synthesized. Their dynamic contrasts were excellent, transients shot out like gun-fire, and the soundstage was the biggest I have ever experienced in my system. Christian McBride’s Gettin’ to It [Verve 314 523 989-2] offered a very realistic portrayal of the upright bass. When he, Ray Brown, and Milt Hinton did the trio on this disc, I was riveted to my seat. There’s a myriad of harmonics (among other things) going on at once.
The C-J delivered with aplomb. Articulate, refined,truthful.

The complex guitar work going on in Jennifer Warnes’ The Hunter [Private Records 01005-82089-2] came through. On one cut, the nylon, arch-top, acoustic and electrical guitars were easy to sort out, even when playing concurrently. Inner detail was abundant. My notes remind me that the vocals were exquisite and the string bass was gorgeous. Ring’s Soul to the Pleasure [City of Tribes COTCD-010] features Barbara Imhof on harp and Patti Clemens’ voiceóvarious friends inject upright and fretless bass, slide guitars, talking drums, and other percussion. The harp and vocals spoke to me with shadings I never thought possible. So much information coming off that harp, yet it was so easy to follow! That seems to be the biggest difference with respect to solid-state. I can hear an enormous level of detail without being overwhelmed or fatigued by it. I can listen to the music, instead of being forced to, as it were, watch it.

Quicksilver M-60 monoblocks

Some observations
Heavy and well built. Solid and simple design and construction. These units look indestructible. Easier to handle than the C-J (since it’s one big 52-pound unit, and the Quickies are two 32-pound units). I really wanted to like these; they looked so cool, in a retro way. (Sadly, my bride thought they looked like a set of miniature nuclear reactors and hoped they’d find a home behind the speakers). Fair enough.

Nice screw-down speaker terminals. Solid connection. Tube-swap friendly
Excellent customer service when I called Quicksilver with questions.

She speaks
Women’s hearing is notably good,* so I put on my wife’s favorite recording, Trish Yearwood’s excellent The Song Remembers When [MCA MCAD-10911]. I went to let the dog in, and upon return (less than five minutes), she was no longer in the living room. I found her typing away at the computer in the den. She looked up at me, frowned, and said, "Slow." I asked her what she meant. "I got bored -- it’s very slow."

*Especially in the critical upper midrange, where, as rule women biologically enjoy a 6 to 10 dB excess of sensitivity compared to most males.

I was, to say the least, confounded. I have never experienced the Dunlavy SC-IIIs as timid in pace.

My turn
Bass was much more subdued than with the C-J; even missing in action in some passages, even those that didn’t go very deep. Decay was very good, but leading edges were lost in space. The M-60s resolved a bit more midrange detail than the C-J, yet they were not as musical, overall.
The M-60s may have the edge in portrayal of harmonics, but at the expense of other important factors - slam (half the drums I usually hear on many cuts never surfaced in a clearly discernible way), dynamics (none to speak of), transients (more rounded). High-level resolution was not up to par; sometimes images would blur; instruments were not as well defined in space. In complex passages, instruments seemed to stumble over one another. The soundstage frequently became wavy and unstable, like images in the rising heat of the road. Overall, a ìsoftî presentation. Ambience was nice, marginally more abundant than on the C-J, but instruments still lacked the vibrance I associate with live music. In my notes, I wrote that it sounded as if someone stuffed a pillow in the hollow of the acoustic guitar on Mary Black’s No Frontiers [Gift Horse D2-77308].

In short
Laid back, polite. Slow (yup, she was right! Say, has my sense of tempo been ruined by very fast solid-state amps?) Digs a little deeper into the midrange of recordings than the C-J, but the soundstage is smaller, foreshortened. Vocals may be more natural, but a bit too forward for my taste. Some people will love this amp. But it’s not going into my system unless something changes dramatically on subsequent listening sessions.

Rogue Audio 88

Initial comments
A unique shipping platform protects the product en route. And once the lid of the unit was off, I understood why. The chassis is torsionally unstable without it. Clearly not the most rigid frame I’ve encountered, but $1,400 retail often gets you much less.

“That looks much better than the miniature nuclear reactors,”said she. “Nice and shiny and it hides all the crap.î”

“I hate brushed aluminum faceplates,”he muttered. Oh well. Let’s pop the top and have a look-see inside. They sent it with the smaller tubes installed? So let’s put those 6550s in and go for burn-in.

After burn-in.
In ultralinear mode, there was a loud hum on turn on, which remained audible within a meter at low listening levels. This hum (from a transformer?) diminished, but did not disappear when I switched the unit to triode mode.

Ambience seemed adequate. Good rhythm (got the head bobbin’ again!) Bass was tuneful but lacking some weight. Nice harmonic delineation among vocals, but leaner than the C-J and Quickies. What’s with this silvery sheen? The piano seems a bit sterile compared to the C-J. Am I squinting? Indeed I am.

And so, it ended; for what it’s worth, Ultralinear Mode became known as ìSolid State Emulation Modeî in my lexicon. The glare was exactly what drove me from my current amp.

Triode mode
There was that hum, again. Much softer, yet still apparent. Nice vocals and adequate ambience, but still harmonically lean relative to the C-J and Quickies. Ambience retrieval was not on a par with C-J or the Quickies on Muddy Waters’ Folk Singer [Mobile Fidelity MFSL 1-201] or Ray Charles’ Greatest Country and Western Hits [DCC LPZ-2102]. Left to right soundstage shifts still lacked some finish. That silvery glaze discovered in Ultralinear Mode was still present; not nearly as bright, though. On Davis’ Kind of Blue [Columbia CK 64935] and Lyle Lovett and His Large Band [MCA 42263] the brass offered only a two-dimensional bite. Where’s the body?

Not so final thoughts
Fast and powerful. Rhythmic. Dimensionally and harmonically leaner than C-J or Quicksilver. Vocals on Janis Ian’s Breaking Silence [Morgan Creek 2959-20023-2] and Daniel Lanois’ Acadie [Opal 9-2569-1] simply didn’t offer the full body extracted by the other amps. Soundstage was better than any solid-state amp I’ve owned, but fell a bit short of the Quickies, which fell significantly short of the C-J. I couldn’t seem to relax into the music; this amp demanded attention.

Guess what? As I went to box it up for return, I noticed that the factory had not set the output taps to 4 ohms as I requested (when they asked me how I wanted them to prep it). So --

The next few days
Set at 4 ohms -- much better. Dimensionality improved and soundstage deepened. Still surprisingly powerful in triode mode (subjectively speaking). The excellent piano work on Mitsuko Uchida’s Schubert Impromptus 899 & 935 [Phillips 456-245-2] was not up to tonal snuff; it struck me as a bit brittle. Microdynamics were also not a strong point.

Bass remained remarkably punchy and deep but lacked the weight/heft/scale needed to differentiate, for example, various deeper percussion instruments and their placement in space.

In the end
Competent entry-level tubed amp for solid-state fans who don’t want to stray too far, too soon. You get a nice soundstage, improved body and harmonics (compared to my solid-state reference), and deep bass and slam from this relatively inexpensive unit.

The Rankings

1. C-J Premiere 11a
I bought it. It doesn’t stand out in any one area (other than soundstaging). More importantly, it doesn’t fall apart anywhere, just does everything well, with a sense of rightness in the timing and tonalities that make music sing. Much resolution, yet easy to listen to. It was the only amp of the three that offered the rhythmic/timing qualities I associate with live, unamplified music.

2. Rogue Audio 88
I’d take it over the $2,000 Quicksilvers. It might remind you a bit of older ARC gear, with its silvery sheen; some would call this the tube-glaze phenomenon, though not being well aquainted with tube amps, I really can’t say. I heard that an Audio Society claims it bested the ARC Classic 60 in their listening tests. If I were you, I’d listen for myself. Wish I had a VTL-85 to compare this to, given that the VTL has been dubbed the Poor Man’s Jadis. The price of the two units falls within $200.*

3. Quicksilver M-60
The Quickies are -- slow. Nice, polite, subdued, yet forward in the midrange. I have been told that this is the ìclassic tube soundî revered by many. System mis-match? Simply not my cup of tea? I can’t answer that, yet. So why go on? End of story.

© Stephan Harrell, The Abso!ute Sound, 1998

Associated Equipment

California Audio Labs Delta transport driving CAL Alpha DAC via Illuminati D-60; Audible Illusions M3 preamp (with MC phono board) recently updated to M3A status; VPI HW-19 Jr./PT-6 tonearm/AT OC-9 cartridge; Dunlavy SC-III speakers; Tara Labs RSC Reference Generation 2 interconnects; Tara Labs RSC Prime 1000 cables (shotgun configuration); Nakamichi RX-202 deck; Tice Elite Power Conditioner, assorted stands and isolation units and other accessories.

Product Weakness:	you'll find this info in the review
Product Strengths:	you'll find this info in the review

• Rod: another one ... Stephen 10:31:31 4/19/99 (2)
  In Reply to: REVIEW: Conrad-Johnson (CJ,C-J) Premier 11a Amplifier (Tube) posted by Stephen on April 19, 1999 at 10:30:30:

  ... that didn't post post fully the first time.

  Is it me?
  
  

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  • Re: Rod: another one ... Rod M 13:09:01 4/19/99 (0)
    In Reply to: Rod: another one ... posted by Stephen on April 19, 1999 at 10:31:31:

    It was a quote thing that RG ran into I suspect. I had fixed it along the way last week.
    
    
    

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    • You just cant take some people anywhere.:-) (nt) Jack G 12:53:20 4/19/99 (0)
      In Reply to: Rod: another one ... posted by Stephen on April 19, 1999 at 10:31:31:

      Ò¿Ò
      
      

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