Hate to be a party pooper but our store has a room filled with amplifiers from $1,000.00 - $15k in one room and and if you add in the matching preamps you may be talking up to $25k. yes these amplifiers do sound radically different.
In our reference room we have $10k amplifiers, $19k, $14k solid state amplifiers and tube amplifiers from $8k to $38k
There are families of sound certain amplifier companies are in the fast, transparent and perhaps a bit lean or just slightly warm: Spectral, Audionet, Ayre, Chord, Sim, Bryston, Solution, T+A, all tend to fall in this area
Then there are the warmer richer amps which may or may not accentuate the the bass with a more polite top end: Dagastino, new Krell XD, Parasound, Anthem STR, Pass Labs, Coda, Darthzeel, Thrax, Ypsilon.
then there are the very neutral punchy amplifiers Hegel, Nuprime, ARC, later CJ, VTL.
all of these are great amplifiers and will shine with the right components and system matching any brand not mentioned was not intentional.
There are definatly increase in openess, resolution, the size, width and depth of the soundstage when you reach the uber amplifiers they just increase the sense of precence over the lesser amplifiers.
When we were searching for reference electronics for our Polymer and Paradigm Persona and Kef Blades we tried: CJ, Devialet, Chord, Thrax, Electrcompaniet, Manly Labs, until we got the T+A gear which just made the speakers come alive in ways that the other amplifiers just didn’t.
As per the OP please try the new Krell solo 575 XD based on your original post of wanting a more organic sound you might really like them, the Ayre amplifiers are very fast and are cleaner then the Krell’s but they lack the sense of flowing warmth and body that the Krell amplifiers do so well, as a Blade dealer we have found amplifiers with a bit of warmth tend to work really well with the Blades which have a very uncolored midrange and tend to like things which add a bit of warmth to the speakers.
Also the Krell are more powerful and are a lot less expensive to boot.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ
In our reference room we have $10k amplifiers, $19k, $14k solid state amplifiers and tube amplifiers from $8k to $38k
There are families of sound certain amplifier companies are in the fast, transparent and perhaps a bit lean or just slightly warm: Spectral, Audionet, Ayre, Chord, Sim, Bryston, Solution, T+A, all tend to fall in this area
Then there are the warmer richer amps which may or may not accentuate the the bass with a more polite top end: Dagastino, new Krell XD, Parasound, Anthem STR, Pass Labs, Coda, Darthzeel, Thrax, Ypsilon.
then there are the very neutral punchy amplifiers Hegel, Nuprime, ARC, later CJ, VTL.
all of these are great amplifiers and will shine with the right components and system matching any brand not mentioned was not intentional.
There are definatly increase in openess, resolution, the size, width and depth of the soundstage when you reach the uber amplifiers they just increase the sense of precence over the lesser amplifiers.
When we were searching for reference electronics for our Polymer and Paradigm Persona and Kef Blades we tried: CJ, Devialet, Chord, Thrax, Electrcompaniet, Manly Labs, until we got the T+A gear which just made the speakers come alive in ways that the other amplifiers just didn’t.
As per the OP please try the new Krell solo 575 XD based on your original post of wanting a more organic sound you might really like them, the Ayre amplifiers are very fast and are cleaner then the Krell’s but they lack the sense of flowing warmth and body that the Krell amplifiers do so well, as a Blade dealer we have found amplifiers with a bit of warmth tend to work really well with the Blades which have a very uncolored midrange and tend to like things which add a bit of warmth to the speakers.
Also the Krell are more powerful and are a lot less expensive to boot.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ