Classe 201 -vs- Odyssey Stratos
Hi, I received my Stratos amp w/ the cap upgrade in the middle of January. Right out of the box I was very impressed w/ its build quality. Very good connectors and casing. Even the feet are of very good quality. It is a very large and heavy piece of equipment. Don't underestimate this, you'll need a lot of rack space for this beast. I had a minor problem w/ my unit after a couple of weeks. It failed to power up. An internal soldered wire had come loose. I spoke to Klaus and he gave his okay to resolder the wire. It was easy and the unit works perfectly now. He was very upset this had occurred. He did seem genuinely concerned. No big deal, but it did happen. Intitially I thought the sound of the amp was poor. Harsh and constrained. No kidding. Odyssey recommends 1 month of burn in. I believe it. I didn't want to judge this amp too harshly at first, so I burned it in w/ continuous music play for the recommended month. Nearly 24/7 play. Things didn't really improve for at least 3 weeks. But they did improve, significantly. After 1 month the unit sounded good. No complaints. I'm replacing a 20 year old Hafler DH200. Frankly the two amps sounded similar. I found it hard to distinguish the two. Maybe my ears are lame, who knows. I'm considering keeping the Hafler and selling the Odyssey. I'm not sure what to do. I have no complaints about this unit. But it's not blowing me away. This could be due to my system, but the amp didn't improve things significantly over the old trusty Hafler. IMO, of course. System: Denon DCM370 CDP B&K Pt3 II pre VandenHul d102 IC's B&W CDM9 Nt's speakers |
Hammergjh, sell the Stratos, buy some music! I liked the Odyssey better then the Classe's mentioned above in monoblock form, mainly because I found the Classe too laid back and I'm not a fan of a 75th row seat, which simply annoyed me right off the bat! I found the Stratos more transparent through the midrange, handling vocals slightly better, but not rivaling the Classe in terms of bass power and articulation, nor its vast and deep soundstage which trounced the Odyssey. That said, in my expereince in my system, for the same or less money on the used market the PS Audio and Bel Canto Digital amps easily dispose of the Odyssey or the Classe amp in most regards (except most notably wrt build quality!).... |
Confused by Socrates!!! Your name is all over the place singing the praises of Odyssey more than any other poster on ANY site (I did my research before I ordered my odyssey DM!) Whats up with the about-face? Are you one of those "I bought one, so (for now) its the best" kind of reviewers? If this is not the case, let me know. If you are one of those people... stop reviewing equipment!!! |
Socrates, isn't the Stratos supposed to have more bass than Classe? That's what the soundstage! review said: "Weighty bass," "smooth and grain-free treble," and "a distinct lack of the upper-midrange glare often found in affordable solid-state products"; "what you have on your recordings is what you will get from your speakers -- provided they're up to the task." stratos review |
