Best Amp to drive my Apogee Stages?

Gallant_diva, I'm still a little confused after reading Leo's statement again. He states a 50 watt receiver may drive the speakers well. His "so what" is in regards to quality.

"You might find a good receiver of, say, 50 watts/channel output that drives the speakers well, but so what? I think that the fine detail and the quality of the Stage really demand a truly fine quality amplifier. Power isn't the issue here. Quality is. So although the Stage is more widely compatible than previous Apogees we don't condone the use of poor-quality ancillaries anywhere in the chain."

Rrog: So my answer is even though you may have a 50 WPC amp that can drive the speaker, then so what? The fine detail and quality of the Stage requires a fine quality amp. So for a 50 WPC, numbers may not matter, quality does. And Even though the Stage is more flexible than other Apogees, it will will not work well with poor-quality 50wpc.

Hope you get the point. -)

So the best is to try it out and you be the judge. Do report it here how it went.

Whoa,
It has been crazy-fun to read all of your postings. I have been enjoying the comments and opinions so much. And, I have researched many of these ideas.

I still have not made an amplifier purchase due to my 4 month old daughter joining Day Care. With 2 kids in Day Care now I am looking at around $3K/mo.

Recently I have run into a Krell KST-100 amplifier ($750) which seems like it would drive the Stages just fine, but after reading all of these postings I might think about saving more money to get more. I really want to be able to experiment and listen to some of these great quality amplifiers to get more of a reference sound. My Dad owns a Levinson, but he will not let me take it out of his house. I can't blame him for that.

Does anybody have an opinion on the sound differences between mono block amplifiers versus a stereo amp? Financially it seems like I can get more of a quality amp. with 2-channel, but reading past Stereophile articles has brought my attention to the old B&K M-200 as well as the Adcom 565 mono blocks.

Thank you all for participating in this thread. Keep on writing.

LoveItLoud

Gallant_diva, I get the point.

The amplifier in question is a Manley Stingray. I think it meets the quality requirements of the Stage. It is an early Stingray rated at 50wpc.

Also, I spoke with you years ago when I was in the business. You mentioned you were doing something with electrostatic speakers. I thought you said you were building them. Did you give that up?

Loveitloud, The KST 100 is a lower priced amplifier and it is not the quality of the KSA series amplifiers by Krell which were made during the same time.