D’Agostino Momentum stereo vs D’Agostino Progression Stereo Amp

Thats why i got the Audia flight Stremto #4 power amp and am very happy, looks and sounds great.

If you check my system page you can read a brief comparison of the momentum and the Ayre monos (should be similar to the S250, just more power).

I had multiple cases of the original Ayre (non twenty) mono main board going bad after about 1.5-2 years - it was a known issue that I don’t think they were ever able to get the bottom of. The twenty doesn’t appear to have the same issue since it doesn’t use the problematic component. I didn’t have any issues with my twenties but only had them for a year. On my M400s, one of the input boards went bad after about a year. My dealer got D’Ag to ship me a new one and they showed me how to swap it out which was pretty straightforward.

Wow, to be honest I did not expect any negative comments, 1981 and Krell is a long time ago though...but sorry to hear about that negative experience @mijostyn

@bar81 I just read your system story, omg, nice to hear other audiophiles experience the same search for the holy grail!
Great to read the m400 dags deliver the goods, but at that time I guess the progressions weren’t available for comparison?
My future budget 🤪would not allow me monos, just a secondhand momentum stereo (or a new progression stereo which is even 5k more) and both of those are really stretching it way beyond what i can afford really.
Did you get a reason why the input board failed?
Would the dags sound closed in on speakers with soft treble themselves (I have old bw800 matrixes)?

@blueskywalker The progression monos were in the shop as well, but I didn’t have the space for them so didn’t take a listen. However, during my multi-day audition of the M400s, another buyer with Alexxes I think came in who didn’t want to pay for the M400s and so took a listen (on the same setup that I heard) to the progression monos with the intent to buy them but didn’t love them and then listened to the M400s and coughed up the money for the M400s.

From what I’ve read, the Ayre MX-R Twenty and the earlier generation M300 were pretty close - some preferred the Ayre and some preferred the D’Ag (although according to my dealer, since the M300 was introduced pretty much all of his customers went with the M300 over the MX-R Twenty but he’s in Asia and in that part of the world I understand that buyers like high priced items so I’m not sure that all the purchases were due to a preference as opposed to the D’Ag being more prestigious due to it being more expensive).

So, if you can afford the S250, that’s the one you should go for based on my experience with the M400. On the other hand, if you’re only looking at the S200 (the stereo equivalent of the M300), then you should consider the Ayre MX-R Twenty as well.

No idea why the input board failed. D’Ag was quite curious and required that the failed board be sent back to them for inspection. I’m guessing that means that it was an isolated event as opposed to a common issue, but who knows.

Sorry, I haven’t heard your speakers so I couldn’t say for sure, but I would definitely try to listen to the MX-R Twenty given what you’re describing as it’s top end has more bite.