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"Warm Sounding" Solid State Amplifiers

As a Canadian I am naturally a huge fan of Bryston products but not long ago I switched things up for a NAD C355BEE integrated amp and instantly realized what I had been missing in terms of warmth, sweetness and overall pleasant sound.

I'm interested in moving up from there into some Class A or A/B amps but I don't know of any other warm sounding Solid State amps other than Pass Labs which are out of my price range at the moment.

Tubes are obviously "where it's at" as they would say but the maintenance factor is somewhat of a deterrent for me. Should I just go for an M series NAD amp or is there another intermediate product between that and Pass Labs??
pontifex
csontos
1,311 posts
 
I've owned several Bedinis. 25/25, 150MKII, 250/250, 100/100. They're all good amps, not great amps. The thing that's lacking in them is speed. The fastest one is the smallest one, the 25/25. But still too slow imo. I don't get the hyperbole about it. It's not hard to find an amp capable of driving low impedance. Now having said that, I still have the 100/100 which needs work. It has a sound stage that is holographic.
pontifex OP
31 posts
 
On the Canuckaudiomart there is a deal on for a Musical Fidelity A308 for $1300 CDN. I've been in contact with the seller but I feel like I'd be making too much of an impulse purchase. The few reviews I've found suggest that it is (as its brand name suggests) quite musical.

Can anyone add to or comment on that? Seems like a decent price but I know it's also an older unit and I don't know what the service is like with MF. I have heard many positive things in general about Musical Fidelity.
csontos
1,311 posts
 
Google it and surf the banter about it.
bombaywalla's avatar
bombaywalla
1,958 posts
 
Pontiflex,
if you like the Pass amps that much, it just might be worth your time to look into getting a Threshold amp. These were essentially Pass amps but marketed & sold by Threshold which was a down-market brand compared to a Pass. My brother used to own a T200 (100W/ch pure class-A amp) & i personally thought that it sounded really very good on all his music.
Another pure class-A amp i've liked is the Plinius SA-250Mk4 & it's smaller cousin the SA-100 Mk2 (I think i.e. re. the Mk number). The Plinius amps has a class-A toggle switch meaning that you can run the amp in pure class-A or toggle the switch & run it in class-AB. The Sa-100 plenty of current delivery capacity to drive most speakers & the SA-240 will drive practically any speaker.
FWIW.
mitch2
4,003 posts
 
I suspect you would like Clayton class A amps.
Another amp you might like, and that fits your budget when purchased used, is the BAT VK-500 that runs in class A/B bias and that uses mosfets in the output stage. I would consider that amp somewhat warm and musical sounding but not in the upper echelon wrt resolution and refinement.
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