Cary CAD 280 Tube amp with CLSii
 

Hi, folks

I have not been pairing my CLSii with the Cary amp since day one. It seems do not well match with other. I must raise up the preamp volume at 3 o'clock to get the comfortable listening level, I tried the amp with pair of Paradigm bookshelf, everything sounds right with volume level only set at 10 o'clock. However when the CLS are driven with the MC402, the ideal volume level for my listening is just at 11 or under. So why was that Happened?

I came up with this question is I am thinking to get the mc275 to pair with my c2300. I really concern about the sonic compatibility between the tube base amp and the ESL panels. Anyone here is currently owning these setup and please tell me your experience. Thanks so much.

Pat

Pat,
The CLSii has a very low sensitivity of only 84db/1m/1watt. You Paradigm bookshelf is probably at around 90db sensitivity. Effectively this means the Paradigm will play 4 times loader for the same volume setting. The reason you need to get the volume that high is that the overall gain in your system is relatively low. This is not a problem but will require higher volume settings. This is not something to worry about but there is another problem you should be aware of.
The CLSii is an extremely difficult speaker to drive and need a lot of power. The impedance of the CLSii drops to 1ohm at high frequencies. A solid state amp will be required to be able to deliver a lot of current or other wise it will be damaged. The good news is that because of the inherent design on tube amps and the fact that they use output transformers they essentially protect them selves from very low impedance loads. Not to become too technical here the result of all this is a role off of the high frequencies. It will be noticeable above ~15KHz.
I had the CLS and drove them with a tube amp and they produced great music. Actually the tube amp drove them best as most solid state amps I tried would give up as I raised the volume. With the tube amp I would get rolled off high frequencies but otherwise it would play flawlessly. Since I don't hear much above 15Khz it was never noticeable or presented a problem. Most people don't have much hearing at this high frequencies anyway.
Bottom line, if it sounds good don't worry about the high volume setting.

Thanks for the quick input, in fact it becomes distortion when turn up the volume beyond 3 o'clock. This is not normal and sounds like compatibility issue to me. I am considering on a pair of Mcintosh MC275, therefore I have to find out how they would sound if there is some owners who are playing with such system. MC275 with CLS.....

Would you tell me which tube amp you had before to drove the speakers. This is what I want to hear comments from past, present owners. Thanks for the time.

Pat