Hi Wilson W/P8 owners, best amp ever to drive WP8?

Gerrym5
Nice system...I bet the Lamm mono's DO sound absolutely fabulous with the Wilson's also.

Dear Gerrym5: There is no doubt that your Lamm's are good tube design amplifiers aand that its quality performance is between the tube technology limitations that between other things means a high output impedance, depending on the " tap " the 2.1 goes from 1 Ohms to 2 Ohms that are considering high output impedances.

What happen with a high output amplifier impedance against the speaker electrical impedance is that exist anon-matched impedances and then the amplifier response instead to be flat fluctuate ( with differeces on SPL all over the speaker electrical impedance/frequency response ).
The response/what we are hearing in those conditions is a " equalization " on the signal due ( between other things ) to that un-matched impedances.
That " equalization "/deviations/colorations does not happen ( everything the same ) when the amplifier has a low output impedance ( say 0.1 Ohm ) and can match the speaker one.

Now, you like what you are hearing, you like those deviations/amplifier equalization, but that does not means is the best way to go with that speaker.

Just imagine your Lamm's with a low output impedance, that will be like " heaven " but unfortunately nothing is perfect and we have to choose the best trade-offs according our music-sound quality performance priorities.

Btw, Arwp the Krell Evolution could be well an " evolution " from what you own.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

You have a great amp. What power cord are you using for it?

If I'm not mistaken I think Wilson uses Audio Research when designing, and tuning their speakers. So that might represent a good choice. Based on some of the above responses and my own experiences it seems like they both work well depending on your tastes. There are a relatively small number of speaker companies that excel at both but Wilson is one of them. I've heard WP8's driven by Boulder and Mark Levinson and both were excellent.

almost everything will have less control than your Krell in the bass department.. so expect a sacrifice.

2 options.... Get a tube preamp and flavor the krell that way

or Theta Citadel's work amazing with the WP8's, and have tremendous bass control. The Ayre MXR's are warmer on top and have way less bass control than the Citadels, plus I find the Citadel's to be more open and transparent (if you are running balanced because of their truely balanced design). Make sure you have at least 1 dedicated 20amp circuit, as the Citadels provide limitless current and volume with the WP's. another huge benefit with the theta amps are they idle at 80watts so there is no warm up time for instant pleasurable listening!! this was a key factor for me.

If you are a deep bass head that likes excessive volume don't get the Lamm ML2.1's (which I own currently along with the Theta Citadel's as I determine which I can live with my Maxx 2's, soon to be three's but I owned WP7's with Lamm M1.1's and M2.1's and the Citadels.) The Lamm's have more texture around the bass notes but the are about 30% of the impact of the Lamm's (then again I'm waiting for a new tubeset because I think the breaking up of sound at volume is a tube problem and not an amplifier problem) But there is no way the 18 watts will ever do what the Theta Citadels do with Wilson speakers (effortless transparent volume).

The only compromise that I considered that I liked better was the VTL S800's or VTL 750's which have all the current and provide the air that tubes have without the bloom/excessive warmness of other tubes. The newer VTL 450's or the S400 would work on the WP8's where they don't quite drive the Maxx's as well.