One more thing regarding solid state amps for the Elipsa SE, I heard them once, briefly, with a Krell sliding bias amp.I forget the model. It was really good and confirms my belief that amps like that (Odyssey, Bryston, Parasound, Pass, etc.) will be great with appropriate preamp.
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pkelly1504 Hi, Really nice speakers you have there, but to get them to sing right, especially in the bass, for these Sonus Faber’s you need an amp that can almost double it’s wattage from 8ohm to 4ohm to 2ohm (eg: 100w 200w 400w) And that means amps that deliver hefty current. No tube/ Mosfet/Class D amp for these. You need big amp/s that have "bi-polar (bjt)" output stages this type of amp will do these speaker justice. As right through the bass and upper bass they are 2.5ohm, and at the low bass with 4ohms and -50degrees phase angle load (EPG), this can look like 1.5ohms to the amp. Just a snippet from the Stereophile test results on these speakers. "With an impedance magnitude that drops to 2.5 ohms throughout the upper bass (fig.1). There is also a punishing combination of 4 ohms magnitude and –50 ° electrical phase angle at 70Hz that will suck gobs of current from the amplifier." joeinid has mentioned two amps I believe that have the goods to deliver big current. Big earlier Krell stereos or mono blocks Dan Agostino designed ones. And my favourite would be the Parasound JC1 mono blocks which you can user adjust the Class A bias with a switch, cool for hot days class A for cold days. Stereophile in the review above used Mark Levinson No.33, Boulder 860 and the Parasound JC1’s these are all bi-polar (bjt) output amps. Cheers George |
Hello & thanks for the responses. I currently use Cary MB 500 mono blocks, a CJ ET3SE, Audio Research PH7 for a phono pre, a Project Extension 12 Turntable with a Sumiko Pearwood II Celebration cartridge to go along with The Elipsa SE's The sound is great I am always looking to upgrade the sound. Would the best option be to buy tube mono blocks with the most power for the $$? There are a pair of Carver Cherry 180's for sale for $4100. They are 180 watts per amp I believe. It seems like I will gain in the mids & highs but lose on the lows by switching to tube amp. Any input is appreciated. |
At this year's Axpona Audio Show in Chicago (O'hare actually) I was extremely impressed with how musical the Sonus Faber Lilium Loudspeakers sounded with the AMG v12 as the source driven by the latest Audio Research GS Preamp and GS150 power amp. I felt it to be the best sound of the show and visited the room several times during my 3 day stay there. I'm not sure how the Lilium compares electrically speaking to your Elipsa SE, but the Audio Research GS150 amp was a match made in heaven with the Lilium speakers. Good luck and enjoy your search! |
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