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Which Solid State Amplifier is Making you Happy?

I'm trying to find a new amplifier to replace a Musical Fidelity A3CR. There are lots of candidates: Rowland 501s, Pass Labs 350.5, Levinson 431/432, H2O, etc. What are people using and what has been a good sonic investment? I'm currently driving B&W N803s, so it's a pretty normal load. My MF amp does not offer enough punch or bass control. It flattens out at higher volumes. I'll spend what it takes, new or used. Less than $8K would be nice. All comments welcome.
Peter
pscialli
guidocorona
4,298 posts
 
Vince, I am trying. . . closest I've been able to arrange is to be in Fresno on Sept 6th and 7th. . . but I haven't lost all hope yet! Guido
tom_hankins
928 posts
 
The last three SS amps I have used were all nice. The big Krells are the best of the three with my Thiels.
Krell FPB 650M, Ayre K-1xe, Parasound JC-1s.
dflee
1 posts
 
I've had a Coda amp for some time now and have found it
able to keep up with any upstream changes showing a
difference in the pieces and able to put the peddle to the
metal for power. In any case I feel a high current amp seems to work best overall.
pubul57
3,712 posts
 
There are so many amps being named, I wonder if there are any bad sounding SS amps (hyperbole). It does seem that SS has come a long way.
brian_eno
25 posts
 
Jeff Rowland model 8T most musical satisfying amp I ever had. Second in my system with Acoustats the Levinson ML-2's. They do posses such a transparency and pinpoint placement of instruments but they could not properly drive my inefficient speakers. Eighteen Volts was max, but they can deliver lots of current and even drive a Apogee Scintilla 1 Ohm version.
Do not know how well the 8T performs in the lower impedence ranges (I mean 2 Ohm and below). It's specification says only 250 Watts @ 8 Ohm and 400 Watts at 4 Ohm. A perfect Voltage source should deliver 500 Watts at that rating of course. Maybe someone does on this forum?
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