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My Long List of Amplifiers and My Personal Review of Each!

So I have been in a long journey looking to find the best amplifiers for my martin logan montis. As you know, the match between an amplifier and speakers has to be a good "marriage" and needs to be blend exquisitely. Right now, I think I might have found the best sounding amplifier for martin logan. I have gone through approximately 34-36 amplifiers in the past 12 months. Some of these are:

Bryston ST, SST, SST2 series
NAD M25
PARASOUND HALO
PARASOUND CLASSIC
KRELL TAS
KRELL KAV 500
KRELL CHORUS
ROTEL RMB 1095
CLASSE CT 5300
CLASSE CA 2200
CLASSE CA 5200
MCINTOSH MC 205
CARY AUDIO CINEMA 7
OUTLAW AUDIO 755
LEXICON RX7
PASS LABS XA 30.8
BUTLER AUDIO 5150
ATI SIGNATURE SERIES 6005

With all that said, the amplifiers I mentioned above are the ones that in my opinion are worth mentioning. To make a long story short, there is NO 5 CHANNEL POWER AMP that sounds as good as a 3ch and 2ch amplifier combination. i have done both experiments and the truth is that YOU DO lose details and more channel separation,etc when you select a 5 channel power amplifier of any manufacturer.
My recollection of what each amp sounded like is as follows:

ATI SIGNATURE SERIES 6005 (great power and amazing soundstage. Very low noise floor, BUT this amplifiers NEEDS TO BE cranked up in order to fully enjoy it. If you like listening at low volume levels or somewhat moderate, you are wasting your time here. This amp won’t sound any different than many other brands out there at this volume. The bass is great, good highs although they are a bit bright for my taste)

NAD M25 (very smooth, powerful, but somewhat thin sounding as far as bass goes)
Bryston sst2(detailed, good soundstage, good power, but can be a little forward with certain speakers which could make them ear fatiguing at loud volumes)

Krell (fast sounding, nice bass attack, nice highs, but some detail does get lost with certain speakers)

rotel (good amp for the money, but too bright in my opinion)

cary audio (good sound overall, very musical, but it didn’t have enough oomph)

parasound halo (good detail, great bass, but it still holds back some background detail that i can hear in others)

lexicon (very laid back and smooth. huge power, but if you like more detail or crisper highs, this amp will disappoint you)

McIntosh mc205 (probably the worst multichannel amp given its price point. it was too thin sounding, had detail but lacked bass.

butler audio (good amplifier. very warm and smooth sweet sounding. i think for the money, this is a better amp than the parasound a51)

pass labs (very VERY musical with excellent bass control. You can listen to this for hours and hours without getting ear fatigue. however, it DOES NOT do well in home theater applications if all you have is a 2 channel set up for movies. The midrange gets somewhat "muddy" or very weak sounding that you find yourself trying to turn it up.

classe audio (best amplifier for multi channel applications. i simply COULDNT FIND a better multi channel amplifier PERIOD. IT has amazing smoothness, amazing power and good bass control although i would say krell has much better bass control)

Update: The reviews above were done in January 2015. Below is my newest update as of October 2016:



PS AUDIO BHK 300 MONOBLOCKS: Amazing amps. Tons of detail and really amazing midrange. the bass is amazing too, but the one thing i will say is that those of you with speakers efficiency of 87db and below you will not have all the "loudness" that you may want from time to time. These amps go into protection mode when using a speaker such as the Salon, but only at very loud levels. Maybe 97db and above. If you don’t listen to extreme crazy levels, these amps will please you in every way.

Plinius Odeon 7 channel amp: This is THE BEST multichannel amp i have ever owned. Far , but FAR SUPERIOR to any other multichannel amp i have owned. In my opinion it destroyed all of the multichannel amps i mentioned above and below. The Odeon is an amp that is in a different tier group and it is in a league of its own. Amazing bass, treble and it made my center channel sound more articulate than ever before. The voices where never scrambled with the action scenes. It just separated everything very nicely.

Theta Dreadnaught D: Good detailed amp. Looks very elegant, has a pleasant sound, but i found it a tad too bright for my taste. I thought it was also somewhat "thin" sounding lacking body to the music. could be that it is because it is class d?

Krell Duo 300: Good amp. Nice and detailed with enough power to handle most speakers out there. I found that it does have a very nice "3d" sound through my electrostatics. Nothing to fault here on this amp.
Mark Levinson 532H: Great 2 channel amp. Lots of detail, amazing midrange which is what Mark Levinson is known for. It sounds very holographic and will please those of you looking for more detail and a better midrange. As far as bass, it is there, but it is not going to give you the slam of a pass labs 350.5 or JC1s for example. It is great for those that appreciate classical music, instrumental, etc, but not those of you who love tons of deep bass.

 It is articulate sounding too
Krell 7200: Plenty of detail and enough power for most people. i found that my rear speakers contained more information after installed this amp. One thing that i hated is that you must use xlr cables with this amp or else you lose most of its sound performance when using RCA’s.

Krell 402e: Great amp. Very powerful and will handle any speaker you wish. Power is incredible and with great detail. That said, i didn’t get all the bass that most reviewers mentioned. I thought it was "ok" in regards to bass. It was there, but it didn’t slam me to my listening chair.

Bryston 4B3: Good amp with a complete sound. I think this amp is more laid back than the SST2 version. I think those of you who found the SST2 version of this amp a little too forward with your speakers will definitely benefit from this amp’s warmth. Bryston has gone towards the "warm" side in my opinion with their new SST3 series. As always, they are built like tanks. I wouldn’t call this amp tube-like, but rather closer to what the classe audio delta 2 series sound like which is on the warm side of things.

Parasound JC1s: Good powerful amps. Amazing low end punch (far superior bass than the 402e). This amp is the amp that i consider complete from top to bottom in regards to sound. Nothing is lacking other than perhaps a nicer chassis. Parasound needs to rework their external appearance when they introduce new amps. This amp would sell much more if it had a revised external appearance because the sound is a great bang for the money. It made my 800 Nautilus scream and slam. Again, amazing low end punch.

Simaudio W7: Good detailed amp. This amp reminds me a lot of the Mark Levinson 532h. Great detail and very articulate. I think this amp will go well with bookshelves that are ported in order to compensate for what it lacks when it comes to the bass. That doesn’t mean it has no bass, but when it is no Parasound JC1 either.
Pass labs 350.5: Wow, where do i begin? maybe my first time around with the xa30.8 wasn’t as special as it was with this monster 350.5. It is just SPECTACULAR sounding with my electrostatics. The bass was THE BEST BASS i have ever heard from ANY amp period. The only amp that comes close would be the jC1s. It made me check my settings to make sure the bass was not boosted and kept making my jaw drop each time i heard it. It totally destroyed the krell 402e in every regard. The krell sounded too "flat" when compared to this amp. This amp had amazing mirange with great detail up top. In my opinion, this amp is the best bang for the money. i loved this amp so much that i ended up buying the amp that follows below.

Pass labs 250.8: What can i say here. This is THE BEST STEREO AMP i have ever heard. This amp destroys all the amps i have listed above today to include the pass labs 350.5. It is a refined 350.5 amp. It has more 3d sound which is something the 350.5 lacked. It has a level of detail that i really have never experienced before and the bass was amazing as well. I really thought it was the most complete power amplifier i have ever heard HANDS DOWN. To me, this is a benchmark of an amplifier. This is the amp that others should be judged by. NOTHING is lacking and right now it is the #1 amplifier that i have ever owned.

My current amps are Mcintosh MC601s: i decided to give these 601s a try and they don’t disappoint. They have great detail, HUGE soundstage, MASSIVE power and great midrange/highs. The bass is great, but it is no pass labs 250.8 or 350.5. As far as looks, these are the best looking amps i have ever owned. No contest there. i gotta be honest with you all, i never bought mcintosh monos before because i wasn’t really "wowed" by the mc452, but it could have been also because at that time i was using a processor as a preamp which i no longer do. Today, i own the Mcintosh C1100 2 chassis tube preamp which sounds unbelievable. All the amps i just described above have been amps that i auditioned with the C1100 as a preamp. The MC601s sound great without a doubt, but i will say that if you are looking for THE BEST sound for the money, these would not be it. However, Mcintosh remains UNMATCHED when it comes to looks and also resale value. Every other amp above depreciates much faster than Mcintosh.

That said, my future purchase (when i can find a steal of a deal) will be the Pass labs 350.8. I am tempted to make a preliminary statement which is that i feel this amp could be THE BEST stereo amp under 30k dollars. Again, i will be able to say more and confirm once i own it. I hope this update can help you all in your buying decisions!


128x128jays_audio_lab
faxer's avatar
faxer
165 posts
 
The eq argument is a simply a band aid for a correcting the inherent problems all speakers with crossovers possess. Specifically, these problems center around phase shift, timing and delay issues - not to mention the overall loss of transparency when compared to a speaker with no crossover.
We welcome all who audition the GT Audioworks speakers to bring any speaker to our showroom so we can do a side by side comparison to prove our aforementioned point.
As Herb Reichert of Stereophile  said when he auditioned the GT’s -that they can go toe to toe with any cost no object speaker.

jays_audio_lab's avatar
jays_audio_lab OP
5,381 posts
 
The eq argument is certainly an interesting one. i don't quite believe in it for 2 channel UNLESS your room and speakers are in an awful situation that something needs to be done. i know some people have terrible rooms with furniture, high couches, and lots of obstacles, etc and i could say to that "hell yea lets use an eq" because the room is not going to change. That said, those of us who have the blessing to have dedicated rooms have much more flexibility to dial in the sound to our liking. I personally don't like to use tone controls, but there is some gear out there that sounds lifeless so i could see someone wanting to add little more sparkle or bass, etc. There is nothing wrong with that, but at the level that i am and where some of you are, i don't think it is adequate to introduce an eq in the mix. 
jays_audio_lab's avatar
jays_audio_lab OP
5,381 posts
 
I am sitting here listening to these amps after not hearing them in over a week since i have been very busy with my family. I let roon just choose a random song and it chose "it smells like a teen spirit" by Nirvana and although this song is a classic and it might be a tad too "aggressive" for my taste, it totally just makes you go "wow, holy sh!t". The drums just make your heart pound, the sense of space and attack just take your breath away.
i keep thinking of new adjectives to describe these amps and man oh man all i can say is that they are so impactful, dense, scary, blissful and earth-shattering in terms of their presentation. i can’t think of ONE THING that i wish they did better, but rather i WISH the rest of my front end was up to par. i can sit here until 3am listening to music and find myself NOT ANALYZING a thing about the sound and i still have yet to elevate my preampfification which should improve things even more.
I have the following amps in mind:
Dag M400s
Boulder 3060

what is stopping me from getting either one is the fact that i am not willing to sell my xs300s in order to purchase either one of those amps. What if i don’t like them as much as these amps? i will never be able to buy another xs300 used since they don’t ever show up on the used market. At this point, yep i see myself not moving out of these amps UNLESS one of those amps above can come in this room and annihilate these pass amps.
If you ever have the opportunity to hear these amps at one of your local dealers, please go listen to them. I don’t think you will be disappointed.
One interesting thing about them is that even though they do have their own sound, they are still able to pass through everything your front end is feeding them. They also are so incredible at letting you hear the different sizes of the soundstage for each song you play. Think of it as a projector that throws a huge image when it is recorded in a 235:1 screen ratio, but when it is recorded in a 4:3 ratio then the projector will put black bars on the sides of the image while projecting on a smaller area. This is exactly what these amps do quite easily and it is very cool to know that when the sound isn’t massive that it is just the song you are playing and the amp is letting you know that.

viber6
2,444 posts
 
WC,
The latest Boulder amps are markedly superior to their predecessors according to Rich Maez, the sales director.  Instead of trying the very expensive 3060, I would go for the still powerful new 1160.  Mayoradamwest will get the 1160 very soon.  Even at $28,000 retail, they would have excellent resale value if you didn't like it after a month.  Better yet, Rich may be able to arrange a loan similar to Merrill.  If not, it is still worth having a talk with him about your situation.

Back to the benefits of EQ.  As you said, "there is some gear out there that sounds lifeless so i could see someone wanting to add little more sparkle or bass, etc."  I agree with this, but I contend that ALL gear sounds lifeless, compared to live unamplified music heard at close range, where the main mikes are in most recordings.  Faxer is incorrect in saying that EQ has no benefit in a properly designed crossover-less speaker.  Crossover or not, this is irrelevant.  The GTA is an excellent speaker, one of the very best, but all speakers benefit from EQ to enable them to approach the snap/clarity of unamplified live music.  I could easily demonstrate this in a blindfold test.  It will be obvious in ONE SECOND, unlike a typical A/B situation with different preamps/amps where the differences are much more subtle and you want to listen to lots of music before making a conclusion. 
aolmrd1241
1,030 posts
 
Mark Levinson seems to think the idea of equalization... is better served in the recording process. He calls it master class...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf4O6fiZ0ao
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