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Whats the word on Jeff Rowland pre-amps?

I am interested purchasing JRDG 201 mono blocks. At the present time I have a Concentra-1 and want to move on to separates. At first I was just going to use the pre-amp section in the Concentra but don't know if I would get the full benefit of the 201s. I would like your opinions out there on the Synergy and new Concerto pre-amps since the dealer in town does not carry them. I know Rowland amps are great, but are his pre-amps at the same level? Anyone have any experience with the John Tucker Exemplar pre-amp? Any other suggestions for a pre-amp would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
dumboat
rec
328 posts
 
I currently have a Jeff Rowland Model 10 amplifier with a Conrad Johnson 16LS Series 11 preamp in my system. At one time I had a Synergy 11i with the Model 10. While I found the Synergy highly detailed it just never worked for me, it may be system dependent but I just found the sound to analytical for my taste. Maybe it was just too much of a good thing, a truly revealing amp with a highly detailed pre amp. I went back to a tube preamp and tried a few before ending up with the CJ. In my system it is the best of both worlds, an exceptional ss amplifier and an outstanding tube preamp.
cytocycle
1,043 posts
 
Why move to separates? Get the new Jeff Rowland Integrated which has two 201's builtin. This will save you considerable $$$. I too have heard the 201's and they weren't controlling enough compared to my Lamm M1.1 on my Wilson WP7's, but they were extremely smooth and liquid with great soundstaging. I am still tempted to try the 501 monoblocks. So unless you have a tough 4ohm load like the Magnepan 3.6's and the WP7's these will provide.

I have heard the 301's (powering Wilson Maxx II's) at my dealers house and 302's in his showroom on WP7's and they were pretty amazing with nothing lacking compared to his old 9Ti's.

I owned a CJ premier 14 (the model before the 16ls), and it definitely is warmer (not tonally accurate but musical) than the Synergy IIi (which I currently own) but it was noisier and had about 1/4 of the volume steps of the Rowland and was subject to picking up noise in my house, worked fine at a friends. Running the Synergy IIi on Batteries with a custom cable is amazing!
flg2001's avatar
flg2001
543 posts
 
I am not familiar with current JRDG preamps, but have had many of their past designs amps (1, 2 and 8) all driven thru either a Consonance or a Coherence preamp (agreed with Raquel here).

I would consider the new Rowland Sinergy preamps in your case, design considerations play heavily in JRDG setups in my experience.

Fernando
guidocorona
4,298 posts
 
If anyone were interested in some of my latest a/b comparison between the JRDG Capri linestage and ARC Ref 3, see:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1200110667&openmine&zzGuidocorona&4&5#Guidocorona

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