Innersound ESL amplifier - good choice?

thank you everyone,

As I write this I am listening to the Innersound ESL amp (30 day trial period) and I wanted to share some very rough and preliminary views. I am using the Innersound speaker wire and will compare that with the Nordost and report back. When using the Rogue I always had Nordost Blue Heaven.
Compared to the Rogue Magnum 120's the sound is much more vibrant, and the bass has more impact and dynamics instead of the thick bass the Rogue has. The midrange of this amp complements the maggie 1.6's and has more of a solid quality (palpable?). In the high end the Rogue has a more natural presentation, more harmonics and nicer tone, but is lacking in detail and air by quite a margin.
The Innersound is very good and this has been an eye opening experience for me. At the very least I now believe if I want to keep these speakers I will drive them with solid state and I will try the Plinius and maybe Bryston amps as well and let you know. I could not find any info on the Conrad Johnson EV2000 but it is very intriging I may well be missing out, thanks tpsonic, (I see one is up for sale $2000)
I also want to try the Zeros and hopefully he will let me do an in home trial as well. The zeros may help the Rogue be more vibrant (if I am not mistaken).

sincerely
Phil

sorry about the triple post I have no idea how it happened
Phil

Good to hear that you've had good results with the Innersound so far Philojet. I've been curious about the Innersound ic's and speaker wires. Keep us posted about them please. I'm waiting for my Rogue 99 to get back from the Magnum upgrade and looking forward to hearing it. Currently I'm using a Rogue 66 in its place. Would also love to hear about any comparisons to the Innersound amp which you may do. I agree that the Innersound has lots of air and detail when I compared it to my Odyssey.

Cary 303/100 -> Coincident cst ic. -> Rogue 66 lsr (until the Magnum 99 arrives) -> Coincident cst ic. -> Innersound esl -> AP Oval 9 biwired -> Magnepan 1.6qr.

Phil,

Your friend, Brian Miller, asked me to add a few comments here in hopes that I could shed some light on the Innersound amp.

As an Innersound dealer, I have had the opportunity to compare the ESL with a number of very fine ampliefiers, using ESL, ribbon and dynamic speakers. Here is some perspective:

One of my customers has a pair of Martin Logan Prodigies. Comparing his McIntosh MC-2000 tube amp, the Innersound amp sounded much more open, dynamic, lively, controlled and detailed in the low end and extended in the high end. The MC-2000 did have a warmth in the midrange and richer harmonics too. Overall though, the Innersound was much more transparent, neutral and faithful to the music.

We also compared his Linn Klimax monoblocks and were shocked to discover how threadbare and harsh it sounded compared to the Innersound. The Innersound was much more relaxed, yet dynamic sounding with a warmer, more musical presentatiion. My customer bought the Innersound that very evening and has lived very happily with it for the last year. For what it's worth, both the McIntosh and Linn amplifies cost $15,000 vs $3000 for the Innersound amp.

Another customer contacted me to audition the ESL amp. He is a die hard ESL speaker devotee from way back and was in search of a new amp to drive his Acoustats. He came over to my place with his Wadia transport and DAC and connecting them directly to the ESL amp, driving a pair of Innersound hybrid ESLs. He was impressed enough to request an in-home audition of the amp.

We got together a few days later for the audition. I first listened to his system using his current amplifier, an older Bel Canto single ended, class A tube amp delivering approximately 50 wpc. He had listened to many other amplifiers over the years, both tube and solid state and felt that overall, the Bel Canto worked best in his system. While the amp sounded very musical, it sounded closed in, compressed, rolled off in the high end and lacked control and detail in the lows. The Innersound improved upon all of these categories to a huge degree but was lacking in harmonics, soundstage depth, image specificity, and overall refinement.

After listening for about an hour, I finally told him that I brought another amplifier with me that I felt bested the Innersound and happened to be $1000 less expensive.

That amplifier was the Electrocompaniet AW220. After listening to AW220 for literally 30 seconds, he turned to me and said with a pleasant surprise "You are absolutely right. This a beautiful sounding amplifier. I've never heard my Acoustats sound so good." Over the next couple of hours we noted the improvements over the Innersound in harmonic complexity, soundstage depth, image specificity, inner detail, micro dynamics, midrange pulpibility, low end slam, fullness and control and overall musicality. Keep in mind that we were comparing the 300 wpc Innersound to a 75 wpc Electrocompaniet. Very interesting. Needless to say, he bought the amp and both he and his friend are now considering buying three more, to be used as monoblocks in each of their systems.

The AW220 is a fully balanced (right down to its dual power supply transformers) high current design, biased into high class AB. Used as a stereo amplifier, it puts out a very strong 75 wpc into 8 ohms, 125 wpc in 4 and 160 wpc into 2. As a monoblock, it deliver 220 watts into 8 and 350 watts in 4 ohms.

One last testimonial. A certain manufacturer of hybrid ribbon speakers recently replaced his $7500 reference Plinius SA-250 amp with a pair of Electrocompaniet AW220 and hasn't looked back. The best part is that the AW220 cost only $4000 per pair.

Don't get me wrong, the Innersound ESL amp is one of the very best amplifiers available for driving panel speakers but the AW220 has bested it with every pair speakers I have tried thus far, including Innersound's Eros and Isis hybrid ESLs.

Hope this helps.

Hi

Thank you for your views. Can we talk? I am wondering who you are and where your shop is located.

Phil Jolett