Looking for a high end integrated to suit Dynaudio contour 5.4's

Today I auditioned the Pass Labs INT-250, Luman L-509X, Accuphase E-470 with Dyn C2's and the Audia Flight FLS-10 Vitus R-100 with marten mingus quintets.

My personal view

The Luxman, beautiful mids and highs, loads of detail and texture, very chilled feel to listen to. Fantastic sound stage, placement of instruments, artists etc. Was missing a little of the low end I like.

The Pass Labs, nice soundstage, not has textured as the Luxman and a more rounded sound.  Bottom end wise there was no comparison.  This amp had control of the speakers from a bass perspective.  Possibly a little to much for my liking.

This is where things got interesting. After listening to the Luxman and the Pass Labs I commented how a blend of these 2 amps would be just right.  The consensus was to give the Accuphase a go.  With in 15 seconds of listening to the first track I knew this Amp had something I liked.  It had the vocals, the detail, the texture and control over the bass and bottom end that I liked.  Talk about Goldilocks and the three bears.

Unfortunately for the Audia Flight FLS-10 and the Vitus R100 I was unable to pair them with Dyns.  It was very difficult to do an Apples to Apples comparison.  The Audia Flight FLS-10 I could see certainly had potential, the Vitus was a bit on the dark and heavy side depending on the track being played.  Both had very natural vocals and you could tell the Audia Flight was waiting for you to throw something at it that would load it up.

I may be having to bite my tongue and swallow my pride on the gold Accuphase look as it was an awesome sounding Amp.  Certainly hit all the right notes to my ears and music tastes anyway.

Thought I'd share my day trying out Amps given all the help Audigon'ers have been so far.

A nice write up on your auditions @plb02. Your comments pretty much reflect my listening notes from my shootout of the bigger separates at Class A Audio, though I wasn’t as taken with the Luxman’s mids as you. For me it just lacked a little class a magic to render a natural presentation compared to the Accuphase amps. Though as you noted, it’s difficult to say how the Audia Flight FLS-10 would have stacked up as that was in a different setup. Perhaps you could swing a home audition of the AF amp which would be the utlimate lipmus test? John is pretty accommodating if you ask him. The AF amp has almost triple the capacitance of the Accuphase & would have a lot more headroom and dynamic freedom. That said, my only reservation with the Accuphase amp is the inflated AU pricing vs Japan pricing which is a better represenation of what that gear is actually worth.

Dynaudio always pair very good to Plinius ! 
The more power of  the amp the better soundstage ! Bass go deep and tight !!!!
i used  Plinius SB 301 + Conrad Johnson ET 5 tube preamp pair with my Dynaudio C2 Platinum , sound excellent and very deep BASS . 

Dynaudio always pair very well to Plinius !
i used Plinius SB 301 + Conrad Johnson ET 5 tube preamp pair with my Dynaudio C2 Platinum , resulted excellen soustage and very ddp bass ! 

Hola a todos, el sonido Plinius (Tautoro + Reference SA) con las 5.4 es muy bueno, la escena sonora es impresionante, tanto lateral como en profundidad. El grave es dinámico con mucho cuerpo y control. Lo malo es el precio elevado de la amplificación y que si quiere el máximo disfrute hay que seleccionar clase A, lo que implica un gran gasto en consumo. El calor que genera la amplificación es otro factor si vives en zonas calurosas, ya que genera lo mismo que una estufa. Vivo en las Islas Canarias (buen tiempo todo casi todo el año), y el costo de la factura eléctrica me hicieron cambiar de opinión a favor de la clase D, y en cuanto a la pequeña diferencia respecto al sonido superior de la Plinius se compensa claramente por el bajo consumo y que no generan calor las Wyred, y sobre todo porque las Wyred te permite disfrutar de la música 24 horas al día siete días a la semana, algo que con la Reference SA te lo tienes que pensar dos veces por el consumo.
Si te preocupa lo que gasta de gasolina tu coche no te compres un Ferrari, sobre todo si te gusta hacer largos recorridos con el coche e ir a más del limite de velocidad.