Welcome! Always great to have new members with experience. I have never heard Leben but always been interested. To start, can u describe them? Like Shindo? or Zanden? or Audio Note? (these are the brands i tend to think of, when i hear Leben.) More linear than these, better bass...etc. I am very happy with my amplifier, but it has been having real technical problems for a long, long time (Gryphon amplifier...in fact, Amir has kindly helped offer advice in the past on a separate thread).
So since i have high efficiency speakers with relatively high impedance loading, i am considering (going back to) tubes. Lamm, as well as some of the Shindo, Leben names come to mind. thanks for any advice!
Hello friends, thankyou for your wellcome.
lloydelee, from the brands you tell me, the only one that I've experienced is Audionote too many years ago, it was a 12 watts per channel amplifier kit and at that time, I used to have a pair of KEF reference 1.4 loudspeakers. It sounded great, but I think Leben has it's own sound. The fact is that you can use a wide variety of tubes in it. From EL34, 6L6GC and it's variations (WGB, 5881, etc), KT-66, KT-77 (a renewed design on my opinion to EL-34, and KT-88.
From all these tubes, I've tried almost all of them and I can say that the ones that i liked were the Siemens EL-34, Black Sable SED EL-34 an JJ KT-77.
You get a warm and musical sound, tight bass, perfect mids and lovely highs. You have "only" 28 watts from EL-34 or KT-77, but IMHO is more than enough as I listen mainly classical music and some jazz.
What I have not liked a lot in tubes, were mainly single ended amps using 300B, 2A3 or 6C33 tubes, even with high efficient speakers, the bass is not so good as I like, but is my opinion, mids and highs are probably the best I've ever heard, probably the only single ended I've liked was an Art Audio Carissa using 845 tubes.
I you ask me if I may recommend a Leben integrated like mine, I will say "YES" without hesitations, but there are some other alternatives that critics says like Luxman or Tri from Japan.
Have my best regards
Ricardo
