Carmnec your statement that you have to use separates is wrong, the uber integrated amplifiers, which include a $45,000.00 Dagastino, the $18k Gryphon Diablo 300,the $23k T+A HV 3100 series are three examples of uber integrated amplifiers that challenge, and outperform many separates.
If you read what we wrote the previous T+A model the HV 3000 at $18k was compared to $120k worth of Ch Precision gear WHICH ARE SEPARATES! and was found to sound nearly as good as those pieces read the article.
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/ta-pa-3000-hv-and-mp-3000-hv/"After a Reality Check stage that, as noted, somewhat curbed my enthusiasm, I decided to set all that aside and listen afresh to the T+A combo playing either CDs or hi-res files via SPDIF. The sound, once more, just blew me away. I invited fellow TAS writer Karl Schuster to drop by and have a listen. He summed things up perfectly when he described the sound as “spooky good.” That spook factor stems from how eerily close these units come to the sound of far costlier Swiss gear. And that, I realized anew, is really the bottom line here. "
Also in particular the T+A electronics are very warm sounding and were actually designed to mimic what a tube does,
" Most notably, the “HV” in its model names indicates that these pieces run at an unusually high voltage. Whereas most solid-state amp electronics operate at about 100 volts internally, T+A gooses its HV units to a whopping 360 volts—roughly the range of tube gear. As in valve equipment, these voltages ensure that the amplification devices are working well within their operating parameters. Indeed, the HV models utilize only about 20 percent of their amplification transistors’ available range. This, in turn, greatly reduces non-linearities. The goal, says T+A, is to mate the naturalness of valves with the speed of solid-state. "
Also in terms of practicallity a uber integrated amplifier takes up less space and only uses one power cord, as well as saving the cost $1k to ?? of a good interconnect cable.
As per experience with Thiels, I used to work for Innovative Audio and actually SOLD Thiels, I don’t think Audio Connection ever sold Thiel, and what works for a Vandersteen does not work well for a Thiel, just because a speaker uses a first order slope means nothing.
Thiel used mostly metal dome tweeters and metal coaxial midrange drivers, vs Vandy whose models used coated Aluminium tweeters and woven midrange drivers point is that other than both being time and phase aligned designs both these speakers sound totally different!
Vandy’s always sounded warm while Thiels has a tendency to sound a bit cold and anaylitical Thiels benefitted from warmer electronics pairings while Vandy worked better with more neutral to brighter more detailed rigs such as Bryston amps, Ayre, or ARC..
By the Carmec I sold Vandy’s by the way as well, I used to work for SBS who sold Vandy, which included 1C, 2CE, 3, worked for Innovative who sold Thiel so actually we have experience with both brands.
Also Camnec asisde from actually selling and setting up Thiels for years, I actually knew and talked with Jim Thiel.
The other advantage of an uber class integrated is you know what it will sound like you don’t have the variability of having to use X brand preamp with Y brand amp.
We would agree with you that a good tube preamp combined with a solid state amp was the traditional Thiel pairing, however, tube and tube sounded sometimes wonderful a popular Thiel pairing at Innovative was BAT VK 3i a clean and open less tuby sounding tube preamp with a Rotel solid state or Classe or even a VAC PA 100/100 tube amplifier.
Carmec, your last statement; " Using an integrated amp with cs3.7 is like putting a trolling motor on a Scarab or Fountain imo."
The T+A HV integrated puts out 300 watts into an 8ohm load and 500 watts into a 4ohm load, the R series integrated puts out 550 watts into a 1 ohm load and can easily drive a pair of Thiels. So your comments are completely misguided.
Thielliste the combo you mentoned would be excellent as the Vac gear is really musical and tends to be on the warmer side of neutral and Mr. Dagastino’s newer amps are voiced a bit on the warmer side. with that being said I would still demo a T+A HV 3100 and a Gryphon Diablo 300 you might be shocked how much you would love the sound of these uber integrateds.
We used to sell Luxman and the pure class A integrated amplifers smoked the Class A/B versions the 509 AX is an excellent integrated amp but may not be powerful enough for the big Theils.
Also the Hegel integrated amplifiers are good but are not in this class of the uber integrated amplifiers level of performance.
Carmec, your intentions are good, however, you can not speak of this kind of generality, in principle separates are usually better, with the class of uber integrated amplifiers you are not correct.
An uber integrated may vastly outperform even very good separates.
One of the posters here purchased a T+A integrated which blew away his Pass gear which were separates so it really does depend on what your experience is.
Dave owner, Audio Doctor
