ICE Amps for classical music?

"do they have the depth, warmth, flow, naturalness, transparency, and beauty of live acoustic music?"

Yes they do. I'm just guessing you've never heard one?

They work in all departments for classical music.

I've found a tube pre-amp to be a very good fit however I looked specifically for an ICEPower based amp that implemented higher input impedance than stock ICEPower modules which are 10K ohms I believe in order to minimize distortion which can wreck havoc on classical music in particular.

The Bel Canto Ref 1000 mkiis are 100K input impedance unbalanced. Older less expensive BC Ref 1000s (not mkii) are stock 10K input impedance as is the S300 I believe.

Wyred4Sound amps are ~60K ohm input impedance.

There are others as well, but many vendors of IcePower amps go with the stock Icepower unit and basic configuration. That may not be a good match on paper with some tube pre-amps having higher output impedances.

Rtn1, In answer to your statement as how one gets to great music with class D, I will give a brief summary.

First of all, your notion a tubed preamp is necessary is far off the mark. I have a class A preamp, and would never consider trading it for any tubed affair.

I started some 5 years ago with my attempt to make good music out of class D. I use to use all Pass Labs gear. Back then the Pass preamp hung on until my amp builder made a preamp that produces miracles. It works perfectly with the low impedance of ICE modules.

Through all latter changes, the amps (mono H2O) and preamp (H2O Fire) have remained. With every improvement I made in my system, my power end obliged passing on the improvement.

There are tubes in my system, four to be exact. They are in my Audio Note DAC. This particular DAC has been transformed with a minor adjustment replacing four diodes. I have found, on my system, all the great number of oversampling CD players, including SACD, sound atrocious.

Last of all, I found out how utterly important the cables are. This system is so transparent that every misstep will announce itself loudly. All insulated cables produce a hiss. Paul Speltz, on his site, describes the phenomena succinctly. My system proves Paul is correct. I found no speaker cable served my needs. So, I created one.

To summarize, the only component that has a signature is the AN DAC, and what a marvelous sound that is. My system will match your, "depth, warmth, flow, naturalness, transparency, and beauty of live acoustic music," plus dig deep into hither to unknown recesses of every CD. All the 90 db dynamic range is utilized. My 1 ohm speakers sound the same at any loudness level. No other type amp can do that through 1 ohm speakers.

Muralman1,

Are you using H2O amplifiers to drive a 1 ohm scinnie,is this correct?

The H2O was to replace your Pass amplifiers ?

I do understand about the high and low difference when playing a 1 ohm load, I'm having the same issues with my 1 ohm ribbon, perfect at low to moderate levels then there is a sweet spot, above this the system loses it's near
perfect balance.

Weseixas,

Correct, and the Fire is an essential partner.

When I play Bolero, I set my volume at 12 o'clock. When the finale raises up
at huge volume, all instruments remain distinct. In the past, with 4 ohm
speakers, and for a while, my 1 ohm speaker, I used Pass gear. The finale
then sounded like a singular mythical wild beast of some sort. For all ears,
that worked. In fact, having all the instrumentation identifiable does dispel
any notion of magic. Of course a live performance would do the same thing.

For another example, the same demystifying happened with Lorena
McKennitt's, "The Highwayman." With the Pass gear the
background was unidentifiable eeriness, and real spooky. Now that all the
musical instrumentation is identifiable, the music is much more engaging,
but the ghosty background fog was dispelled.

By the way, the X-600 ran out of gas at high levels and tripped off. I have had
the pleasure to listen to all the new Pass gear, and they do offer a better
performance than the older models.

There is one more very important point. I sold my grazzled speakers. They
didn't work with my gear. I kept my Apogee ribboned speakers.