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ICE Amps for classical music?

I listen to classical orchestral music at heavy volume. I detest reproduced music for always sounding more or less electronic and not acoustic. Real music is beautiful in a way reproduced music--so far at least-- never is. I have become curious about Wyred4sound amps because of low price and high watts. I am wondering if any of you "mostly classical" listeners have heard these amps and feel they do no more damage to music than amps which are NOT ICE amps. I am using a Plinius SA100 now and have used a VAC 100/100,
a Bedini Classic 100/100, a Music Reference RM-9, and other tube and solid state amps. They all had their pluses and minuses, of course, but for least electronic, clearly the Bedini was the winner. So what about ICE amps?
rpfef
weseixas
519 posts
 
rx8man ,

what brand class-d ?
rx8man's avatar
rx8man
1,481 posts
 
Muralman1, more people will discover Class D, it takes time and acceptance to overcome skepticism and doubting.

I'm also a big proponent of NOS Dacs, esp. AD1865.

I KNOW your Scintillas rock-out (my 1st high-end experience)
I still talk to the guy who used to own Golden Gramaphone in Northern Oh. about it !

Weseixas, NuForce Ref 9V2-SE.
michael_moskowich
86 posts
 
"For driving class D amps, I have preferred SS Roland Capri ... over my tubed ARC Ref 3."

Hello Guido,

I also owned Roland Capri but after purchasing Spectron Musician 3 amps I got Joule-Electra LA-300ME line stage and this combination is much, much better then that with Capri. Try this preamp with your Roland 312 and you will be literally shocked how MUSICAL it will sound.

Mike
guidocorona
4,298 posts
 
Thank you Michael, Joule-Electra has an excellent reputation and the matching with Spectron comes highly recommended by Simon Thacher. I experienced a similar performance leap migrating from Capri to the Rowland Criterion reference pre for feeding the Rowland 312. It is probably an issue of consistent voicing across the product line, as much as it is the degree of isolation of the power supply, the type of transformer coupling of inputs and outputs that pretty well avoids any impedance mismatch, and I could go on waxing poetic on technical detail. . . . Lots of paths to Nirvana, isn't it? G.
weseixas
519 posts
 
The nuforce looks like it would be a little weak ( power wise) for an 1 ohm ribbon or planer type speaker.

Not saying it can't but it would appear 500 @ 1 is about what is needed for good dynamics.

Specifications:

*
Configuration: Mono Input:
RCA and true balance XLR
*
Power output (see Power FAQ)
Ref 9 V3 / Ref 9 V3SE

Power/Load 8 ohm 4 ohm 2 ohm
Peak Power ) 325W 650W 1300W (20 msec)
RMS Power 175W 335W 335W

*RMS power denotes maximum continuous power. Peak power denotes an instantaneous power boost. Note that typical listening normally requires about 15W of power. These high power amplifiers provide more than sufficient power for just about any speakers on the market.

***************

Interesting to hear of other recommended brands , so far we have .

Bel Canto
Nuforce
H2O

Others ?
More to discover