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My Long List of Amplifiers and My Personal Review of Each!

So I have been in a long journey looking to find the best amplifiers for my martin logan montis. As you know, the match between an amplifier and speakers has to be a good "marriage" and needs to be blend exquisitely. Right now, I think I might have found the best sounding amplifier for martin logan. I have gone through approximately 34-36 amplifiers in the past 12 months. Some of these are:

Bryston ST, SST, SST2 series
NAD M25
PARASOUND HALO
PARASOUND CLASSIC
KRELL TAS
KRELL KAV 500
KRELL CHORUS
ROTEL RMB 1095
CLASSE CT 5300
CLASSE CA 2200
CLASSE CA 5200
MCINTOSH MC 205
CARY AUDIO CINEMA 7
OUTLAW AUDIO 755
LEXICON RX7
PASS LABS XA 30.8
BUTLER AUDIO 5150
ATI SIGNATURE SERIES 6005

With all that said, the amplifiers I mentioned above are the ones that in my opinion are worth mentioning. To make a long story short, there is NO 5 CHANNEL POWER AMP that sounds as good as a 3ch and 2ch amplifier combination. i have done both experiments and the truth is that YOU DO lose details and more channel separation,etc when you select a 5 channel power amplifier of any manufacturer.
My recollection of what each amp sounded like is as follows:

ATI SIGNATURE SERIES 6005 (great power and amazing soundstage. Very low noise floor, BUT this amplifiers NEEDS TO BE cranked up in order to fully enjoy it. If you like listening at low volume levels or somewhat moderate, you are wasting your time here. This amp won’t sound any different than many other brands out there at this volume. The bass is great, good highs although they are a bit bright for my taste)

NAD M25 (very smooth, powerful, but somewhat thin sounding as far as bass goes)
Bryston sst2(detailed, good soundstage, good power, but can be a little forward with certain speakers which could make them ear fatiguing at loud volumes)

Krell (fast sounding, nice bass attack, nice highs, but some detail does get lost with certain speakers)

rotel (good amp for the money, but too bright in my opinion)

cary audio (good sound overall, very musical, but it didn’t have enough oomph)

parasound halo (good detail, great bass, but it still holds back some background detail that i can hear in others)

lexicon (very laid back and smooth. huge power, but if you like more detail or crisper highs, this amp will disappoint you)

McIntosh mc205 (probably the worst multichannel amp given its price point. it was too thin sounding, had detail but lacked bass.

butler audio (good amplifier. very warm and smooth sweet sounding. i think for the money, this is a better amp than the parasound a51)

pass labs (very VERY musical with excellent bass control. You can listen to this for hours and hours without getting ear fatigue. however, it DOES NOT do well in home theater applications if all you have is a 2 channel set up for movies. The midrange gets somewhat "muddy" or very weak sounding that you find yourself trying to turn it up.

classe audio (best amplifier for multi channel applications. i simply COULDNT FIND a better multi channel amplifier PERIOD. IT has amazing smoothness, amazing power and good bass control although i would say krell has much better bass control)

Update: The reviews above were done in January 2015. Below is my newest update as of October 2016:



PS AUDIO BHK 300 MONOBLOCKS: Amazing amps. Tons of detail and really amazing midrange. the bass is amazing too, but the one thing i will say is that those of you with speakers efficiency of 87db and below you will not have all the "loudness" that you may want from time to time. These amps go into protection mode when using a speaker such as the Salon, but only at very loud levels. Maybe 97db and above. If you don’t listen to extreme crazy levels, these amps will please you in every way.

Plinius Odeon 7 channel amp: This is THE BEST multichannel amp i have ever owned. Far , but FAR SUPERIOR to any other multichannel amp i have owned. In my opinion it destroyed all of the multichannel amps i mentioned above and below. The Odeon is an amp that is in a different tier group and it is in a league of its own. Amazing bass, treble and it made my center channel sound more articulate than ever before. The voices where never scrambled with the action scenes. It just separated everything very nicely.

Theta Dreadnaught D: Good detailed amp. Looks very elegant, has a pleasant sound, but i found it a tad too bright for my taste. I thought it was also somewhat "thin" sounding lacking body to the music. could be that it is because it is class d?

Krell Duo 300: Good amp. Nice and detailed with enough power to handle most speakers out there. I found that it does have a very nice "3d" sound through my electrostatics. Nothing to fault here on this amp.
Mark Levinson 532H: Great 2 channel amp. Lots of detail, amazing midrange which is what Mark Levinson is known for. It sounds very holographic and will please those of you looking for more detail and a better midrange. As far as bass, it is there, but it is not going to give you the slam of a pass labs 350.5 or JC1s for example. It is great for those that appreciate classical music, instrumental, etc, but not those of you who love tons of deep bass.

 It is articulate sounding too
Krell 7200: Plenty of detail and enough power for most people. i found that my rear speakers contained more information after installed this amp. One thing that i hated is that you must use xlr cables with this amp or else you lose most of its sound performance when using RCA’s.

Krell 402e: Great amp. Very powerful and will handle any speaker you wish. Power is incredible and with great detail. That said, i didn’t get all the bass that most reviewers mentioned. I thought it was "ok" in regards to bass. It was there, but it didn’t slam me to my listening chair.

Bryston 4B3: Good amp with a complete sound. I think this amp is more laid back than the SST2 version. I think those of you who found the SST2 version of this amp a little too forward with your speakers will definitely benefit from this amp’s warmth. Bryston has gone towards the "warm" side in my opinion with their new SST3 series. As always, they are built like tanks. I wouldn’t call this amp tube-like, but rather closer to what the classe audio delta 2 series sound like which is on the warm side of things.

Parasound JC1s: Good powerful amps. Amazing low end punch (far superior bass than the 402e). This amp is the amp that i consider complete from top to bottom in regards to sound. Nothing is lacking other than perhaps a nicer chassis. Parasound needs to rework their external appearance when they introduce new amps. This amp would sell much more if it had a revised external appearance because the sound is a great bang for the money. It made my 800 Nautilus scream and slam. Again, amazing low end punch.

Simaudio W7: Good detailed amp. This amp reminds me a lot of the Mark Levinson 532h. Great detail and very articulate. I think this amp will go well with bookshelves that are ported in order to compensate for what it lacks when it comes to the bass. That doesn’t mean it has no bass, but when it is no Parasound JC1 either.
Pass labs 350.5: Wow, where do i begin? maybe my first time around with the xa30.8 wasn’t as special as it was with this monster 350.5. It is just SPECTACULAR sounding with my electrostatics. The bass was THE BEST BASS i have ever heard from ANY amp period. The only amp that comes close would be the jC1s. It made me check my settings to make sure the bass was not boosted and kept making my jaw drop each time i heard it. It totally destroyed the krell 402e in every regard. The krell sounded too "flat" when compared to this amp. This amp had amazing mirange with great detail up top. In my opinion, this amp is the best bang for the money. i loved this amp so much that i ended up buying the amp that follows below.

Pass labs 250.8: What can i say here. This is THE BEST STEREO AMP i have ever heard. This amp destroys all the amps i have listed above today to include the pass labs 350.5. It is a refined 350.5 amp. It has more 3d sound which is something the 350.5 lacked. It has a level of detail that i really have never experienced before and the bass was amazing as well. I really thought it was the most complete power amplifier i have ever heard HANDS DOWN. To me, this is a benchmark of an amplifier. This is the amp that others should be judged by. NOTHING is lacking and right now it is the #1 amplifier that i have ever owned.

My current amps are Mcintosh MC601s: i decided to give these 601s a try and they don’t disappoint. They have great detail, HUGE soundstage, MASSIVE power and great midrange/highs. The bass is great, but it is no pass labs 250.8 or 350.5. As far as looks, these are the best looking amps i have ever owned. No contest there. i gotta be honest with you all, i never bought mcintosh monos before because i wasn’t really "wowed" by the mc452, but it could have been also because at that time i was using a processor as a preamp which i no longer do. Today, i own the Mcintosh C1100 2 chassis tube preamp which sounds unbelievable. All the amps i just described above have been amps that i auditioned with the C1100 as a preamp. The MC601s sound great without a doubt, but i will say that if you are looking for THE BEST sound for the money, these would not be it. However, Mcintosh remains UNMATCHED when it comes to looks and also resale value. Every other amp above depreciates much faster than Mcintosh.

That said, my future purchase (when i can find a steal of a deal) will be the Pass labs 350.8. I am tempted to make a preliminary statement which is that i feel this amp could be THE BEST stereo amp under 30k dollars. Again, i will be able to say more and confirm once i own it. I hope this update can help you all in your buying decisions!


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jays_audio_lab's avatar
jays_audio_lab OP
5,381 posts
 
Coming up tonight :
Shunyata Denali 6000T VS Audioquest Niagara 5000. 
Stay tuned for the video 
jays_audio_lab's avatar
jays_audio_lab OP
5,381 posts
 
I have yet to own CH Amplifiers. I have heard it at 2 shows and was not impressed by any means. Cold, boring , non engaging BUT it could have been system synergy. That said, I have been told by several people whose years I trust that they heard the line and they felt exactly the same. 
jays_audio_lab's avatar
jays_audio_lab OP
5,381 posts
 
@ron17. 
you have an interesting question in regards to how i feel about what we discussed a year ago. So i remember saying that speakers should be about 50% of your budget and right now (a year later) things are different for me. I own Sasha DAW which are not more money than my DCS DAC & Upsampler plus the Gryphon. I think it really depends on the advancements in technology to be honest. For instance: Let's say you have a speaker right now that is current and it retails for $50,000 and the rest of your set up adds up to another $50,000. Fast forward 5 years from now and you might find that there is now another manufacturer that now builds a speaker superior to your $50k speakers and yet it only costs $35,000. All of a sudden you find yourself with a speaker that costs less than the rest of your rig (adding all components of course) and so it is difficult to say, let alone stay within this proportion we talked about. 
For the most part i have only owned 1 speaker that was more than the rest of my rig and those were the Neoliths, but now that i think about it i realize that the rest of my journey i have always had speakers that probably are below the 50% total value of my rig. 
However, i don't believe that you could do a 15k speaker like let's say a martin logan 13a and use 100k worth of components and pretend that this will blow away a 50k speaker with 65k worth of electronics ($115k msrp on both systems).  I don't think that electronics can close the gap when the speakers are oceans apart in terms of their price point. 
guidocorona
4,298 posts
 

Hello WC, I am with you concerning CH Precision.... I should add: two-dimensional, grainy, screechy, sand-papery, and utterly unmusical. Mind you, this was several years ago at RMAF in the CH Precision suite, so things might have evolved for the better since then... Asked the gent to play a few cuts from my test CD... The result was jaw-droppingly unsatisfactory.... Asked politely to the importer if perhaps the system was factory fresh and not broken in.... He responded stiffly that yes, it was fresh from the factory, and that it sounded perfect, because CH Precision electronics does not require any break-in whatsoever.... He said something like If I did not like it it clearly was because my sonic taste was not refined enough and I needed to accustom myself to the CH Precision sonic marvel. Asked the gent to please give me back my test CD, and left.


G.



psnyder149's avatar
psnyder149
160 posts
 
ron17 and WCSS,

IMHO...  Once you exit the world of lo-fi/mass market or even mid-fi, the 50% speaker rule can almost never reasonably make sense except unless you are putting together the most basic system.  In 1972, I expect that the 50% speaker rule may have been relied upon... Then Ivor Tiefenbrun turned the hi-fi world upside down when he introduced the Linn Sondek LP12 with the belief that the source was the most important part of a system and as such should command the most (or at least equal parts) of the budget.  

Consider this:  $10,000 (retail pricing only) system:  $5,000 speakers (by rule…),  SimAudio ACE (all in one) $3,400 with $1,500 in cables and it would sound really nice...  

But I bet those same $5,000 speakers would sound even better with a $5000 amp, a $5000 pre/pro (or even separate pre/dac, a $2500 network server/streamer, $2500 subwoofer, $5,000 in cables/isolation etc.  Or you could even go a different direction and spend $5,000 on a turntable, arm and cartridge and $2,500 for a phonostage.  Yes, now it is a $35,000 system, but the same speakers could still be sounding really great... although admittedly, I wouldn't be surprised if the next move would be to a $15000 pair of speakers!  The problem with the ACE is that it offers little possibility for moving forward in an incremental way without largely starting over.  With amp, pre-amp, streamer all in one box, speaker cable and PC and isolation is more or less all you can do.

My personal experience is that to maximize marginal benefits and really get the most out of all of the components, there needs to be a certain balance and harmony.  I'm not saying it has to be this way but I more or less have equal money in the following groupings:  source components (phono and digital combined), pre amp/amp, speakers with each comprising approximately 10-20% of my system cost...  

The crazy thing is that the nearly 50% left over in my system after components is on accessories:  cables (PC, IC, SC, USB, ethernet), power supply treatment and mechanical isolation…much to Ivor’s disapproval!  Most of my accessories category was spent after I had purchased my main components (although I did have a reasonable MIT cable loom so I wasn't starting from scratch).  With every additional accessory or cable upgrade the overall sound of my system improved.  

I'm pretty sure that absolutely nobody had accessories in mind as the head of the 50% rule, in fact I can't believe that my system has ended up this way, but if you told me I had to cut 50% out of one of my categories, the one I could most easily cut... is speakers.  My current speakers have "little brothers" that sold for 1/3 of my current speakers, and previously, I owned a pair.  I wouldn't choose to go back, but if I had to choose "one thing", that would be my choice... and it would be a quite easy choice!

Let the firestorm of retorts begin!!!!  lol
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