A classic combo for really musical, detailed and great soundstage is Sonus Faber. Olympica ? I think they are about right. But listen to them.. any decent pair. Their sound is very natural and musical… I am on my third pair after abandoning planar after 30 years. For me all genera of music improved and they do not overly emphasize the venue over the music. So, they are all about the music… pretty also.
Bought an Audio Research Amp
I feel like i should preface this with a basic rundown of my system up til now:
Pre: ARC LS25 MKII
Amp: Legacy High Current Amplifier (rebadged CODA Stage 3.2)
Dac: SMSL M400
Transports: Auralic Aries Femto/Sony DVP-S7000
Speakers: LSA-10 Signature
Subwoofer: Recapped Velodyne Servo-1200
Anyhow, as the story goes, I recently acquired an old Yamaha RX-770 on the cheap, figured maybe I’d gift it to a friend. When I inserted it into my system to test it, I was shocked by how good it sounded. It sounded really close to my separates. Worse yet, the Yamaha actually made much better bass through my speakers (sub was off). It was louder, faster, and better controlled sounding. This was extremely distressing.
I thought maybe this was due to the age of my CODA, but the yamaha is actually about ten years older, so that didn’t make sense. The best I could come up with was just a poor match for my preamp. I can’t recall the figures off the top of my head, but i did some math when I bought the amp to ascertain if matching them was appropriate, in terms of both input sensitivity and impedance, and recall that both were toward the bare minimum.
Having read numerous times that the increase in synergy is substantial between ARC components, I started casually shopping online for an ARC amp. I briefly entertained a VT100 MKIII which seemed a good deal, but the price of retubing it currently is around $1000, and i just don’t think right now is the time for me to jump into tube amplification with the soaring prices of tubes.
A 300.2 caught my eye, but I couldn’t find any information online that convinced me that a Tripath class-d design of ten years ago would better a solid class a/b design, and I can’t really afford to buy an amp just to find out.
Fortunately, I came across a craigslist ad a week ago for a D400 located only an hour away from me, at a price that was a fair bit lower than similar models had sold for recently (as per Hifishark). Awesome.
I spoke with the gentleman who had listed the amp, and it turned out that he was the proprietor of a stereo service center, and was selling it for a longtime customer who had been using it, along with 2 D200’s and a D300, to power an eloborate horn speaker setup, but who had, due to the onset of Alzheimer’s, become unable to manage the complexity of his own system. This is, I have to say, extremely tragic. The store’s owner told me the amp was in great shape, had been well cared for, and due to being used in a high efficiency setup, had never been run hard.
Needless to say I was extremely excited at the prospect of owning a D400. Wasn’t able to uncover much in the way of reviews, but I was able to find that it shared circuit-design lineage with the extremely well-regarded d240 MKII, as well as reports from other users who’d paired it with an LS25 and reported extremely positive results.
So I made an appointment to bring my preamp down and auidition the amp. When I arrived, the store owner was extremely friendly, more than happy to take the time to talk audio with me, show me his personal system (Threshold/Altec VoTT), and all the amazing gear he had on hand, even though I showed up shortly before his usual closing time.
And the Amp? I really wasn’t prepared for how colossally huge it was… it really is a monolith, just beastly.As far as the sound goes, well, let’s just say that by the time I’d been listening to it for 5m, I already knew i was going to buy it!
Once i got it home (nearly destroyed my back getting it out of the trunk), and into my system, it sounded even better! Compared to the CODA, highs were more sharply focused, I gained more of a sense of instruments existing in specific “space”, and the bass/mid bass had tightened up considerably while also increasing considerably in terms of volume and impact. Overall, I’d say the sound is less on the warm side than the CODA, which I think is better for my speakers which have a pretty laid back character.
I will, say that the amp runs pretty hot, even at Idle. I don’t know if it’s biased pretty hard into class a, or what. Also, it does does take 2-3 hours of warm up before it sounds at it’s best. I’ve taken to power it up the night before if I’m intending to do a lot of listening the following day.
Really, I couldn’t be more ecstatic; I really feel like I took a big step toward being “there” with my system. Of course that just leads me to thinking about what I need to start agonizing over upgrading next, ha ha!
Big shout out to Kevin at The Stereo Workshop in Eugene, OR for being such a gracious host and giving me such a fair shake.
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I don't mean to do anything to dispel your enthusiasm but your solid state ARC brings up an interesting aspect of vintage amps. ARC can not and will not service the vast majority of their solid state amps due to parts availability and the circuit boards previously utilized. They can service any tube amp ever made by them. Although there are no absolutes, tube amps are fundamentally serviceable regardless of age whereas many older solid state designs are not. Time and time again some very opinionated individual on this Board will dismiss tube amps as being expensive to maintain and glorified tone controls and then those same people ask where they can have their twenty year old solid state amp serviced because the manufacturer is out of business and they can't find a tech who can repair it. Total thread drift so apologies extended. |
@rfnoise You are correct. A small room is an issue with Magneplaner products. Possibly the smaller ones might be worth a try(?). Whatever, try it out IN YOUR ROOM and be sure YOU are happy. There are no "perfect" choices for reproducing music for everyone no matter what anyone thinks. As a dealer, you soon learn that fact! Cheers! |
@rfnoise -At 200W a channel, you have A LOT of choices. Given your tastes in music I would agree with the poster who said Sonus Faber. I'd also add Totem and the Spendor A or D series. Each speaker has terrific PRaT which is something your ARC combo excels at. Let us know what you decide upon. It's always fun participating in these threads. PS-Ignore people telling you that if your equipment breaks, you will have difficulty getting it repaired. There are many options for ARC repair services, IF you need them. Happy listening! David |
I’m finding that I tend to prefer a more cool/neutral sound; whatt I’ve read about the Sonus Faber sound tends to use words like “warm” “dark”and “lush”. Has that been your experience? Well that’s disconcerting… it was my understanding that ARC stands behind their heritage products regardless of age. I mentioned that the person who brokered the sale was a tech; he said that when his customer brought it in he opened it up for a bench test, and everything checked out within spec, so hopefully I won’t be ending up with a boat anchor anytime soon. I did ask him if I should be worried about the age of the electrolytics in the amp, and he told me that the “full recap craze” (his words) was a fairly recent development, and that he didn’t believe in replacing something unless it was failing/out of spec. It’s interesting that there isn’t a solid state amp in their current lineup. Correct me if I’m wrong, but as far as I was able to ascertain, their last solid state power amps were the DS series, which was over ten years ago. |
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