Last month I realized that I’ve yet to hear what I heard at the showroom from the A3s. Perhaps I should have just gone with a Hegel amp, that’s what was used at the showroom. However, the dealer told me that my amp was roughly the same power and should work well. I had the Yamaha A-S3000 at the time.
Then a buddy who has S-7s brought over a PrimaLuna Dialogue One integrated for me to try for a while and the sonics were greatly improved but the amp didn’t have quite enough power. After his amp went back to him, I picked up a Dyna PAS-3X preamp which improved the sonics paired with the Yamaha. Then, I purchased a PrimaLuna EVO400 power amp and that was an upgrade from the Dialogue One. I was happy with the sonics for a while.
That is until I went over for a listening session at my buddy’s house who drives his S7s with VAC amps and preamp.
Now I’m waiting for new to me amps and a preamp. I’m going with NAT Audio Generator monoblocks and a Symmetrical preamp. I just happened to be reading this article and it seemed to confirm what I’ve been finding out the hard way.
"Magico’s proprietary Elliptical Symmetry Crossover integrates the drivers with a three-way network utilizing a 24db per octave Linkwitz-Riley filter that Alon explained maximizes frequency bandwidth while preserving phase linearity and minimizing intermodulation distortion.
The stated sensitivity is 88 dB with an impedance of 4 Ohms. Read this as meaning you need an amplifier that can deliver significant current without strain."
I haven’t tried any of the tweaks that are talked about upstream in this thread. The dealer where I auditioned the A3s was using Transparent cables.
