Bel Canto EVO 200.2


Just wanted to testify to (1) the sound quality and value of the Bel Canto 200.2 and (2) the service provided by my dealer, Goldman Audio. The sound quality is outstanding--the amp has no sound--quiet as a mouse--with good body, terrific highs, solid bass (the clarity of Paul Chamber's bass at the beginning of "So What" is remarkable, as is Scott Lafaro's bass on Bill Evans' "Waltz for Debby"). I'm a long-time tube man but amp is something special (and this comment is written while the amp is still breaking in...).Too, it's only $2395 per--a steal for an amp this good (sorry about the hyperbole but what a deal for the quality of this amp). I'm getting a second to monoblock. If you're looking for this amp, try Goldman Audio, the dealer through which I purchased my amps (www.goldmanaudio.com). Jon is great to deal with--responsive and fair. Highest recommendations for both amp and dealer. Jamie
jamiehughburr
Vintgeguru is on target. Hearing the EVo with and without an upsampling DAC and good cables showed a huge difference on the same material. I listened to jazzy mid-70s Santana, without the DAC his solo was a bit vieled and recessed; with the DAC it suddenly stood out clean and pure -- I was impressed at the difference. The better the source, the better the EVo sounds. With TI just coming out with a great, cheap chip to do upsampling to 24/192Hz, I'm waiting for next year's DACs to upgrade.
I own the EVo and never find myself thinking about my next amp upgdrade except maybe a second EVo for mono operation. In terms of parts cost, how much do you think transistors cost in normal amps? I have seen a lot of people critisize Bel Canto for just packaging someone elses technology but there aren't too many other companies delivering on it.
sws2 piqued my interest in the marsh line of amps and it just so happened that a friend/dealer had his line in. so i asked to demo one and i got to take home the a200s. while the marsh was very nice in some ways, it was terribly harsh sounding. i had another fellow audiophile over and we listened to both switching them in and out after listening time and time again to certain tracks. the conclusion we came to was that although the marsh had 95% of the low level detail of the evo, its ambience and soundstage just wasn't quite there. also, as noted before, there was very noticeable sibilance and the midrange seemed real edgy. depending on the system used, this may be a desired trait. in my system, the harshness of the top end and the edgy midrange didn't bring the best out of my ribbon driver. i would imagine in a system in which the speakers were very inefficient and in which the top end seems darker and or more lush then accurate and real detailed. not to say the marsh won't perform well in any other system, but in my experience with it i wouldn't recommend it to anyone looking for most of the positive aspects of the evo. i would also like to agree with morasp above, if this technology and the effort to build them is so cheap and i quote from a poster on another forum "simple for any DIY'er" why hasn't any other company jumped on the bandwagon seeing the potential for sales with its demand, after all there is a 3 week back order on the evo.
I want to comment about Vintgeguru's experiences with the Marsh as I can only assume the Marsh was not fully broken in. Mine took about 150 hours to totally break in and was rough the first 50 to 60 hours. I am not experiencing any harshness or brightness currently. I use the analysis plus speaker cables which is the same cable I used with the EVO. The Marsh clearly has more detail, less dryness and is better overall in my system. I have to think others have had similar experiences with the EVO as at times there are 6 or 7 for sale at one time on Audiogon.
Just so you know, we at BCD have a pair of SL3s in our listening room and they play to this speaker's highest performance.