<center><img src="http://www.audiosynergy.co.uk/index.1.jpg"></center><p>When partnered with speakers 88db+ of your choosing in a not too large room and it's going to make music sound glorious.
Pure Class A

Just released.<ul><li><a href="http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.audiosynergy.co.uk/index.1.jpg&amp;imgrefurl=http://www.audiosynergy.co.uk/&amp;h=311&amp;w=709&amp;sz=17&amp;hl=en&amp;start=18&amp;tbnid=DTpkGtQ3Fo 2omM:&amp;tbnh=61&amp;tbnw=140&amp

Maybe 45+WPC Class-A bridged? They also go 250-680WPC and .003% - .02% THD across 20-20kHz depending on load (non-bridged) and run down to 2 Ohms and 3 pairs of spkrs out. Not bad for a 25 year old amp (yes, they still run 100%) :-)

How much $$$ do these little gems run?

M-80's/M-85's are going for $600+ a pop on e-pay these days.

has enough power to drive the inefficient Magneplanars loud enough to make your ears bleed. Tube watts are more than transistor watts. Although it does **** me off in the summer, putting out 1.5KW of heat. I have to turn on the A/C when I power up the home theatre system.

Having said that, Sugdens are great sounding little amps. Like the 20WPC Musical Fidelity A1 I used to have.

100 watts is 100 watts.

They may cover a wider portion of the frequency range more steadily, but that doesn't mean they aren't going to sound shrill or mechanical. Transistor circuitry is extensive and often causes the sound to lose a lot of it's warmth, richness and character.
Tubes, despite not measuring particularly without flaw, often (particularly when used in applications with high quality output transfomers) appeal to our hearing senses more so because where they do perform well sonically is where our ears are most sensitive to sweet tones.
The most enthralling systems I've had the pleasure of sitting in front of have more often than not been tube-based. But I there are some really impressive transistor amps out there. they are quite hard to find (especially if the are Japanese), but they are there. Most transistor amps tend to lack substance and can sound quite vanilla if not hard and glassy.
Some of the good ones however are:
Luxman's LF505
Almost any Naim amplifier
NuForce's ref 9se Class D amps
Rotel's new 1092 Class D power amp
Various models from Plinius
Jungson JA-88D
Some 70's Yamaha power amps...

When I first started out getting to quality audio gear I just wanted to make sure the bass was tight and punchy and the treble was detailed and clear. I figured the midrange would take care of itself.
But as the years rolled-on I was exposed to amplifiers which delivered the stuff in the middle brilliantly to the point where what was going-on at the extremes wasn't any near as important. A lot of this depends on the music you listen to of course. Electronic and heavy rock music sound great on Japanese tranny amps.

One of the few manufacturers out there who give AR a good run for their money.

but you won't find tubes there either. There are plenty of great manufacturers make amazing Class A and Class A/B MOSFET amps, more than I'll ever get the chance to hear.

That is, better in every respect, apart from bass slam, and that's handled by my subwoofer.

Tubes and MOSFETs are totally different beasts, I don't think it's fair to really compare to the two because they have two totally different sonic characteristics. But to say a good MOSFET design is hard to find is really not the case these days.

I think you are referring to older, lower power designs. The AR is designed to be a neutral reference - indeed in tone it does sound close to MOSFET.

Yamahas, Onkyos and Denons.

In as much as Sony 100 watt amplifier will deliver the same performance as a Naim or a Krell 100 watt amplifier?

That's like saying any two cars who's speedometers goes up to 180mph will drive the same.

I guess I would agree, though, that tubes can also be 'euphoric'!!
but as LuvnhatemyA6 says, the old stereotypes are blurring now. my vintage tube gear definitely sounds sweet and lush, but modern designs are combining the best of all worlds (as are the better SS designs). it comes down to which side of the fence you'd rather fall on.
The old 'MOSFET mist' complaint of the past has been largely solved by newer designs.

Can't agree w/ you on "100 watts is 100 watts", though. have you seen the clipping curves on a typical tube output device? wayyy more gradual than transistor. this is partly why 'tube watts' seem so underrated, when subjected to real world listening conditions.

On account of the soft clipping behaviour.

They will also agrue till they are blue in the face in spite of test equipment results.

I had an interesting discussion with an engineer from Hershey chocolate yesterday about tube amps. I bought a set of speakers from him, and I commented on the tube amp he had sitting in the corner of his room. He commented on how disappointing he was, and he actually bought new bass drivers for his speakers because of the buzzing he heard while using the tube amp on certain music he listened to. I had the same experience with the Alice in Chains unplugged CD with tube amps causing an unnatural buzzing of bass guitar strings which was not there with transistor amps.

As for 100 watts being 100 watts I stand by my statement, re-read my point on tube amps sounding good while clipping if you missed that point. Tubes love distortion, that's why guitar players like them, they make a grungy/crunchy sound which they love while transistors blow up, or take out your drivers when distorted too much.

I have speakers in my home theater with protection circuits to avoid damage, and while the protection circuits never activates with 200 watts of tube power well into clipping to the point I can hear the distortion, they do activate with 1000 watts of transistor power, but there is no way that the tubes play as loud, and anyone who believes different has never tested with a db meter.