Jeff Rowland - No Exposure?

Jeff Rowland is one of the very best component manufacturers in the world. Aboslutly superb sounds, they might expensive if you're going by power ratings. I have tried numerous amplifiers (Krell, Levinson, Plinius, Pass Labs...etc.), some come close but still not Rowland. Once you try Jeff Rowland, nothing can replace it. imo.

p.s. I'm selling a Model 10 right now on Audiogon, if it ever sells, I'm upgrading to a Model 12. So I might be bias.

JRDG is a pretty high profile manufacturer who gets plenty of press and respect. No they're not reviewed as much as Musical Fidelity, but then again, who is?

I'm hoping someone has compared the newer stuff to the older stuff and can describe the sonics. I'm especially interested in knowing what Rowland's digital approach to power supply design has done to sonics.

I heard a pair of JRDG Model 10 about two years ago. If my memory serves me right; its sound was very transparent, lean and clean.... the analogy I had was liken to that of purified distill water. I found the 'emotional content' was a bit lacking.
Recently in the same system I heard the latest Model 302; these are very simliar to the Model 10's sound but much faster in transient and have this sensation that both ends of the frequency spectrum have been extend further than the older model. Tonally it is a little bit light yet powerful.... quite a contradiction but its performance is far more engaging than teh Model 10.
Finally a pair of Model 301 was substituted in place of the Model 302. These I was told are transformer coupled. Its sonic performance builts on top of the Model 301 by having a MUCH more robust sound right from the start. The speakers used with all the aforementioned models was a pair of Wilson W3P2. Although I cannot verified what the HK Chinese Review (can be found in the JRDG website) claiming that these monoblocks have the best bass response of all amplifiers. But it does go VERY deep and VERY fast if the source material allows.
Tonally the Model 301is warmer in sound than the other previous models. There is something quite magical about its sound.... at the moment I can only pin it down on that magnificant mid-range. Its neither solid state nor tube like in the best sense of the word (world?).
One final word, although these might not be high on the agenda of many audiphiles' buying criteria. But the aesthetics of these new Model 300s is simply superb. Its overall foot-print is smaller than the previous Model 8 and 9. And thank god for that! Now theseModel 300s can even reside in my humble hi-fi rig without much problem. According to the bumf, these are designed specifically to fit into a lot of AV systems' cabinets. I even showed a friend of mine who is writing abook on metal objects and he's going to feature them in his forthcoming book after seeing them in the flesh!
Now if only Mr. Rowland and team can come up with an equally superior sounding preamplifier that shares the same width of these Model 300s soon......

Ya, know what one of the best ''things'' about Rowland gear is...is when it's paid off !!!! I have owned Rowland gear and nothing else for the past 9 years. I currenlty own and bought them new, a Model 5 amp and the Consummate pre-amp.....although I have listened to others during the years, nothing has come close to the sweet sound that these two components deliver. I know, I know mine are older units far removed from what you gentlemen are listening to, but this company makes and just as importantly, backs up ALL of their equipment with some real nice and professional people. Their equipment makes music sound REAL ! You won't regret your purchase .....

In partial answer to Kevziek's latest post, Tora's post shows me that the Rowland sound may have changed. The early Rowland amps, the Models 7 and 5, were fairly warm sounding to me, big, bold and robust, giving a sound that Lewis Lipnick in Stereophile described (and I think correctly) as giving an up-close perspective of the musical event, as opposed to Krell amps of the time, which gave you a picture from further back in the audience (maybe this meant that the Rowland did not convey spatial cues from the hall as well as the Krell did?). I would never call them lean by any means, but I would say they were intensely musical, conveying the emotion of the music very well. Interesting to see Tora's description, which seems quite different from the older models. I have not heard any of the models since the Model 8, so I'm not qualified to offer any thoughts on them.

I listened to the Model 112. Hard to describe the sonics - It was clean, but lacking liveliness to the sound. Vocal overtones & vibrato were somewhat truncated. They didn't ring out the way they do on tube amps, or even other quality SS amps, i.e. Pass.

Switching to the partially digital Model 10 was a definite improvement. There was more sparkle, life. However, voices still lost some of their life. Perhaps the newer digital switching output models - 302, 201 - have a better sound, as Tora suggests.

Very interesting, as I then compared it to an ARC VT-100 Mk III (I own a Mk II). Tubes still have a more organic wholeness to their sound, albeit with the addition of some subtle texture, and some lack of ultimate resolution. Tubes especially sound superior on vocals, where all the elements of a human voice line up and sound as if you are hearing a real voice, as opposed to a facsimile, which describes what I hear from every solid state amp except the Boulder.

Piano also rings out more & longer with the tube amp. It just sounds more like a real piano in all respects - the attack of the hammer on the string, the resultant complex wave of the vibrating string, & a longer decay.

Overall, I was somewhat disappointed and was expecting more from the Rowlands. Keep in mind that I am a musician, and may be more keenly aware of nuances & elements of musical sound than most non-musicians are.

Kevziek - The 302 is a huge improvement over the Model 10, in exactly the areas/ways you have highlighted - and in many other ways. I owned a Model 10 for a few years, and I have now had the 302 in my system for about 5 months.

System synergy is very important for Rowland gear- which I've owned exclusively for the last 15 years or so. I have the model 9t with battery power supplies. The sound is magical with the right source material. Listen to Rowland with Cardas interconnects and speaker cables and just let the music flow! Jeff is an easy-going vegetarian fellow and it is reflective of his gear!