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!


128x128jays_audio_lab

FCC does not "approve" inverters. An inverter can be certified to meet FCC standards. That they use such language makes me question the validity of the claim. Their FCC marking is also not correct. They also states this only for the 5000W unit. Perhaps it was a requirement for a specific end customer (i.e. RV). The size is pretty typical (total volume) to other 5000W units.

When you start talking about the footers on the inverter changing the sound I know we are not going to have a useful conversation. Enjoy whatever part of the day it is where you are.

theaudioamp,

Why is a pure sine wave not an advantageous waveform?  Fourier analysis shows that any complex waveform is a mathematical combination of various sine waves at different frequencies.  You could reduce this complex waveform to a combination of other waves such as triangle waves, but then the triangle wave is also a combination of simpler sine waves.  The same could be said about a "prettified" modified sine wave that PS Audio is producing as an option.  That modified sine wave can still be reduced to a combination of pure sine waves.  Ultimately the sine wave is the most natural, simple waveform.  Mathematically, the 1st derivative of sine x is cosine x, which is actually sine x 90 degrees out of phase.  The 2nd derivative of sine x, or the 1st derivative of cosine x is minus sine x.  We never left the perfect home--the sine wave.  So the sine wave is the most natural, universal component wave from which all waves are derived.  As far as I know, the only other function whose derivative is the same as the function, is "e to the x power" but this is not an audio wave.  

   (Kren0006, did I remember my math correctly?  It's been over 50 years!)

Using a decent recording such as the opening at 0:00 on the 1st video with S1000 and opening at 3:00 on the 2nd video with S2500, it is OBVIOUS that the S2500 has much more spatiality and fine resolution.  I just used another computer which emphasizes high freq, which made this more obvious than on my other computer.  I can just imagine the squiggles of ultrasonic HF junk in the inferior S1000 waveform, which are greatly diminished in the better reconstructed waveform of the S2500.  

theaudioamp--Did you carefully listen to these videos, or are you merely giving us engineering theory?  My guess is that your statement, "If those amps are as good as Jay claims, excuse my skepticism about any claim of reliably hearing that the Stromtank improves it," shows that you did not listen.  Although to prove my point, Jay would present the system with and without the S2500.  He may be tired of all the skeptics and may not want to bother to do this.  He already showed that the S2500 is a big step up in sound purity from the S1000, which I imagine is also a big step up from no battery/inverter at all.  So I would expect the jump from nothing to the S2500 to be humongous.

Jay, I agree wholeheartedly that the S2500 makes a much bigger improvement in clarity and naturalness than any combination of power cords.  It probably often makes a greater improvement than getting a different power amp or preamp.  Although better power/pre amps have lower distortion circuits, they still have to filter out the ultrasonic HF garbage superimposed on the pure AC sine wave they were designed to work with.  Their high capacitance input takes the AC from the wall and creates DC which feeds the main circuits.  Is this DC perfect, free of ultrasonic artifacts?  I doubt it, and I believe a reconstructed AC from these battery/inverters does a better job.

Do you agree, theaudioamp?  If not, why?  Using your quote about the hundreds of meters' distance from the power generating station, there is lots of ultrasonic HF junk all systems must get rid of, and I think that a well executed battery/inverter is the best way to do it.

theaudioamp,

No, you are wrong.  Several of the Giandel units say the same FCC thang.....Look at the two units with their display on the top on the first two lines of inverters on this page.......

 

Why is a pure sine wave not an advantageous waveform? Fourier analysis shows that any complex waveform is a mathematical combination of various sine waves at different frequencies. You could reduce this complex waveform to a combination of other waves such as triangle waves, but then the triangle wave is also a combination of simpler sine waves. The same could be said about a "prettified" modified sine wave that PS Audio is producing as an option. That modified sine wave can still be reduced to a combination of pure sine waves. Ultimately the sine wave is the most natural, simple waveform. Mathematically, the 1st derivative of sine x is cosine x, which is actually sine x 90 degrees out of phase. The 2nd derivative of sine x, or the 1st derivative of cosine x is minus sine x. We never left the perfect home--the sine wave. So the sine wave is the most natural, universal component wave from which all waves are derived. As far as I know, the only other function whose derivative is the same as the function, is "e to the x power" but this is not an audio wave.

This is gobbledygook. It is pointless for me to say anything in retort. We aren’t working from the same skill set. Frankly I don’t know what you are working from, but this is just a bunch of words thrown together while carrying no meaning. Please don’t do that.

 

Is this DC perfect, free of ultrasonic artifacts? I doubt it, and I believe a reconstructed AC from these battery/inverters does a better job.

 

You betcha it is. It is not even difficult to get rid of. You know what these inverters have by the way? Big honking huge switch mode power supplies.

I could not find the same song at 0:00 and 3:00 approximately on any two Stromtank videos, so not sure what I was supposed to be comparing, however, some general comments:

  • Lady in Red: There was no spatiality, there was simply excessive upper-mid/low high echo/reverberation. I know it is a youtube video, but it was pretty awful.
  • Way Down in the Hole: Only slightly better. Strangely bright and reverberating.
  • Suspicious Minds, La Isla Bonita -- more of the same.

Frankly, you can't discern anything from these videos. They sound like they were recorded in a bathroom, or with added electronics reverb. What I don't understand is why in some videos, whoever has the camera appear to be standing directly in front of one speaker, but it does not change the sound. Riddle me that.