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Parasound A21+ vs MF M8 500S vs Cary 200.2 ES vs Hegel H20

Whilst in COVID lockdown I've been considering the next step for my system. 

I've been running a Herron VTSP-3 tube pre-amp into a Rogue ST100 tube amp for a while and whilst it has beautiful tone, timbre, density and the performers appear in front of me, I feel like it is a little smoothed over and lacking in excitement and dynamics. It needs a touch more air, liveliness and punch.

I tried a CJ CA200 (185wpc) integrated and a Kinki EX-M1 (215wpc) integrated and they both brought excitement and dynamics to the presentation but the CJ was faulty and was returned to the seller and the Kinki sounded just a touch dry to me (I upgraded the opamps which helped but it somehow sounded harmonically incomplete or overdamped and I couldn't ignore this when listening). Surprisingly, I didn't miss the tubes although both my pre-amp and amp sound pretty neutral and not typically tubey.

Although my speakers, Silverline Sonata III's, are rated an easy 93db sensitivity and 8ohm (+/- 10%) impedance, the extra power of the two integrated amps I tried really seemed to bring them to life. So, I'm thinking that if I keep the tube pre-amp but replace the Rogue ST100 (60wpc in Triode mode and 100wpc in Ultralinear mode) with a solid state power amp that's around 200wpc+ into 8 ohms, it might get me to where I want to be.

Obviously taking the candidate power amps home for trial would be ideal but this would be very difficult logistically, plus I will probably want to buy used in order to be able to afford the quality I'm after. Buying, trying and selling a number of amps is not something that would be readily tolerated by my wife who, although tolerant of my audio obsession has her limits.

So, if anyone has compared these amps, especially directly against each other, I would really appreciate hearing your thoughts as to their relative strengths and weaknesses. 

dkerr
avanti1960
1,480 posts
 
@dkerr
same speakers used for both amps, st 100 and a21+ , 86db harbeth shl5+.  
overall i liked the sound of the stereo100 better, more dynamic, more organic, ability to tube swap, i used amperex 12ax7 and rca 12au7.  
i bought the a21+ thinking it would improve bass response.  wrong.  
i never replace a new component with one i sold off, throwing good money after bad.  
the a21+ is an excellent solid state amp and it does sound very good and can play quite loud without fuss.  
ps i also demoed the hegel h20 and did not care for the sound of the system, thin, overly transparent amost surgical with ker r11 towers. 
the right preamp will meet your goals.  important to note is that the rogue RH 5 sounds much more dynamic than the RP 5 (no balanced connections either).  it even sounds better than the twice as expensinve RP 7 which i owned.  I was very disappointed in the lack of dynamics in the RP 7.  
another one to try is the Cary SLP 98.  even with rca connections it is very dynamic.  check cary direct for good prices.  
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jjss49
6,612 posts
 
overkill in terms of the efficiency of your speakers

in my experience the hegel outperforms the parasound in terms of soundstaging (somewhat wider, a good bit deeper, more specific image outlines, more space between elements), timbre (acoustic instruments and voices sounded more correct and open) and transparency (parasound is more rounded off in upper midrange and treble, hegel sounded more open with more inner detail, without being overtly bright or hard)

speakers used were harbeth shl5+, spendor sp1/2e, proac d30r and vandersteen 3a sigs
dkerr OP
22 posts
 
@avanti1960  and @jjss49 
Thanks for your feedback and suggestions, good information for me to digest as I consider the next step.

I noticed that like me, Herb Reichert (Stereophile reviewer) was using both the Holo Spring DAC and Rogue ST100 power amp in his reference system. He was using the Rogue RH-5 as his linestage but later replaced  it with the Rogue RP-7 pre-amp. @avanti1960  aside from the  inferior dynamics, did you feel that the RP-7 was otherwise better than the RH-5 or did they sound pretty much the same?

We appear to only have one Rogue dealer in Oz, about 600 miles away, so I won't be able to try the RH-5 or RP-7 without buying and there's also no Rogues on the "used" market here. I haven't got the $$$ for a new RP-7 at the moment but I could possibly grab the RH-5 if the dealer here has it. 

The Cary SLP98 suggestion is interesting but if we suspect the use of the Rogue ST100's SE inputs is the cause of the lack of dynamics, I hesitate to buy another SE only pre-amp. 

I've always run my Rythmik sealed subwoofer (30k Zin) off the second pair of SE outputs on the Herron VTSP-3. It shouldn't be an issue as the ST100 is an easy 200k Zin for SE and the Herron's Zout is quite low at 100 ohms from memory. However, in the next few days I'll change the connection over to the sub's high level inputs running off the ST100's speaker outputs to ease the loading on the Herron and see if it makes any difference to dynamics. I had the sub connected that way when I was trying out the Kinki EX-M1 as it didn't have a pre-out output for the sub. 

avanti1960
1,480 posts
 
@dkerr 
the RH 5 sounded more neutral and transparent than the RP 7.  The RP 7 sounded soft and overly polidhed, rounded off on top despite trying the best tubes to fix it.  
i could easily have lived with the RH 5, I traded the RP 7.  
The Cary SLP 98 has extreme drive and dynamics despite the RCA connections.  
My preference would still be the RH 5 though.  
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jjss49
6,612 posts
 
when i had the cary slp98p i felt the unit was very euphonic, rather rolled off on both freq extremes, a very caramel type of sound... moreso than counterparts from cj, arc, modwright...  ymmv
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