Hey fam I’m breathing new life into this thread as I have a lot of the gear that is listed here, I have a Sony STR 6060 that I just bought on eBay, it’s on its way now so I’ll post comparisons soon. Currently I have a sherwood s 5000 / s3000 tuner tube amp hooked up to my wharfedale w90s and have been swapping my Sony str 6065 in and out and comparing the two. The other speakers I have used them on include Altec bolero 890s, ar4xa, and Polk monitor 10s.
anyways, to me the sherwood has a little more midrange emphasis and has the best dynamics of any tube amp I’ve heard in its class, just fantastic sound, the Sony 6065 at 50wpc has a feeling of endless power which has not been apparent with other higher power amps I’ve used, there’s something like a brick wall of sound with it hooked up to my Wharfedale w90s, it’s a little “cleaner” overall than the sherwood, prob due to extra headroom. Regardless, if you were wondering about differences between these two amps, they are minimal when mated to higher efficiency speakers, I can’t make up my mind which one I prefer.
With the Polk 10s both amps came off as boomy and unrefined, but I think the 10s need a massive yamaha amp or something with different in sound signature altogether. Not recommended.
Altec boleros sounded great with either amp, I really think the s 5000 and the 6065 have almost identical qualities at times.
im excited to get ahold of my 6060 later this week and add that to the comparison.