Sansui AU 20000 vs. Bob Latino ST-70 for Cornwalls?

[plschles]

I have a Sansui AU 20000 for my Klipsch Cornwalls. Does anyone by chance have an opinion of which one sounds better between the Sansui AU 20000 and the Bob Latino ST-70 for the Klipsch Cornwalls? Thanks.

 

[airtime]

Actually having had a number of the Sansui AU amps and the VTA ST-70, unfortunately without the Cornwalls, I would say the 70 hands down.

The AU's are good for more suspension type speakers. The Cornwalls are an excellent match for the 70.

Note: I am using other Klipsch speakers as reference.

 

[superjojo]

Your sansui is a monster 150+ wpc correct? You must be scaring the birds out of the trees!

VTA ST-70 would be much more natural pairing for the Cornwalls. A passive preamp or simple volume pot could control a phono stage and dac with ease in that setup.

 

[plschles]

yeh, its 170.

 

[primosounds]

The Sansui while an awesome SS amp was designed for driving mostly large multidriver or electrostatic type speakers. Which is the antithesis of the Klipsch Cornwall a high efficiency speaker that can work on a 5 watt or even less single ended amplifier. So, i would be looking to get a single ended tube amp of around 10 watts that would still rattle the windows of your listening room and drive your wife or significant other into the street! If you check the frequency plots of well made or designed SE amps they are very linear with low levels of distortion at 1 watt. And the Klipsch with their 100+ db efficiency would reproduce about 95% of the music at room filling levels with around that much power.

 

[brad44]

RIght now Im listening to the Grateful Dead 7/10/89 Giants Stadium, Healy Ultra-matrix master cassette to 24/96 flac via Foobar2000>Jolida Tube DAC III>VTA ST70>Cornwall I.

Sounds super!