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Blue Circle CS vs. Unison Unico

I am awaiting the arival of my GMA Europas but I am still torn betwen amps in my purchasing. The Blue Circle gear and in my price range the CS come highly recomended from Roy of GMA. I am nervous about it just because I cant find any reviews of this unit. although with pretty good inards and point to point hand wireing i dont doubt its competance. Asside from the fact that I am unable to audition these products I dont know how conservative the ratings of blue circle gear is. That is very important...I need a very capable 50wpc from it to drive speakers in the 25x35x3 room. On the other hand there is the unison unico which has a tube output and weighs in at 35lbs, more than two times the Blue Circle CS. I have heard that the Unico does not rate the power conservativly, I am less woried about the 80wpc. It has great reviews and seemed a great product. At any rate if anyone has any Ideas, thoughts, or comments on either of these amps, their synergy with the Europas or just which one to get, let me know.

Thanks
Eric Baer
iamcrazy111
loose
239 posts
 
here's the scoop. I was considering the CS at some point. It's a very good sounding integrated and, for the price, I would recommend it highly.

The Unico, however, is without a doubt a level or two up in performance. It's much more 'liquid' or 'fluid' sounding and just seems to have better levels of depth and width.

Remember - this is not meant to discredit the CS - it IS very good and if you can't squeeze the $$$ for the Unico, go for it!
loose
239 posts
 
by the way...this apparent 'lack of power' of the unico is complete nonsense... (just wanted to add that bit)
restock
831 posts
 
Loose, looking at you old posts seems like you like the Unico much better now with your new speakers after you had some issues with the Unico-NHT combination.

What else did you change in you system (tubes, cables etc.) to get everything out of the unico? I am curious to hear some more comments.
mattybumpkin
590 posts
 
I owned the Unico for a brief period, matched with a pair of Epos M12's in an approx. 12x15x8 room. Beautiful amp, very well made.

It does most things very well. It really brought the texture and nuances of the music out. Very palpable. I did not keep it however. I wanted more detail than it provided as well as more oomph. The Epos are a 8 ohm load but they do dip down to 4 or so (The Europas are an easy 4 ohm load)and I didn't feel the Unico had enough juice for the Epos. For me anyway. YMMV.

I owned the Europa's for about a year, great speaker, you will enjoy them. Roy and company are great people too.

If you can, try to demo each amp. My response, as well as the others you recieve, reflect only our opinions and own personal tastes. You ultimately should purchase the amp that you like.

Good luck,

PS - I know it is a bit more $$$, but how about a used Belles integrated??
newbee
4,775 posts
 
FWIW, I just went thru this "intellectual" process a few days ago. I'm getting some speakers which should do quite well with 35wts per channel (not much different in actual use than 50wt) and I wanted a secondary source for them. The speakers are rated at 4 ohm and have an 92db efficency. What influenced my decision most was that the new amp (integrated) is tubes in both the pre-amp and amp sections, has 4 and 8 ohm output taps, is self biasing, is fused so that a blown tube doesn't damage the amp, and has been getting great press. Read up on the Prima Luna. There are two versions, one with EL34's (the one I ordered) and one with KT88's which comes with some internal upgrades and a few more wts.
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