Jeff Rowland Criterion vs Soulution 720

Arnie brings up a valid point, as he has direct experience with driving Magico speakers. Conversely, I base my own suggestion on personal 15 years of experience with various Rowland amps, including the M725, which has been favorably reviewed by Robert Harley on TAS driving Magico Q7.... But I have not tried M725 on any Magico speakers.

Furthermore, my suggestion of M825 is of necessity conjectural. While it would sound "reasonable" that M825 may outperform the M725 monos, the proof rests in a "pudding" that no one has "tasted" yet.

G.

Guido, do you have a sense how you think the M825/Corus amps would sound with Avalon speakers..in particular the new Compas? As i'm sure you're aware, the Compas speakers were debuted in Hong Kong paired with M925 mono's.

Cheers,
Melbguy.

Hi Melbguy, I can only make some conjectures, based on what I know about M925 and M825, which is not yet a great deal....

M825 outputs 440W instead of the 440W of the M925.... Furthermore, the external 2400W power supply of M825 serves two channels instead of one. I suspect that, as a consequence, M825 might deliver staging and images that are slightly smaller than M925, with perhaps some proportionally reduced authority.... However, the two devices are supposed to be otherwise internally quite similar except for the obvious differences caused by the stereo vs mono topologies... So I suspect that their sonic characteristics may be very close to each other.

As Corus supplies an output impedance of 60 Ohms, it will be compatible with either amps, and should not be a factor on the choice of speakers.

Unfortunately, I am not familiar with the Avalon Compass speaker... So it is difficult for me to make any meaningful guesses on a specific match of M825 to Compass.

Guido

Thanks for your feedback Guido. The M825 delivers exactly the maximum recommended power for the Compas (750 watts @4 ohms), so I think it would have excellent control and sound effortless driving the Compas. Avalon are stage and imaging champs, so if the 825 sacrifices a bit of stage or imagine size to the mono's, it wouldn't be an issue with these speakers.

Yes I would expect the differences to be small and both amps would have a similar sonic signature. Personally I don't have the room or the funds for the mono's, so the 825 would do me just fine.

Hi MelbGuy, when you get M825, please do share your experience with us... Be prepared for a long break in time... According to JRDG, M925 and M825 use very large input transformers, which may take a long time to achieve peak performance.

Guido