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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
viber6
2,448 posts
 

In deference to psnyder's honest assessment of my audio choices, let me explain why I do what I do in more detail.  Today, I played Handel's Messiah in an orchestra with chorus.  As usual, I was overwhelmed by the power of the music, being immersed in it.  The singers were a few feet from me.  The immediacy of the sound brought such detail that the beauty brought tears that blurred my reading of the music in front of me.  This intimate musical experience parallels the intimacy everyone has had with close romantic encounters, so I really don't understand why anyone would prefer their music laid back from a distance.

There is no speaker that comes close to this intimate live experience.  Before I discovered EQ 25 years ago, my system was about as good as listening in the 5th row.  The best conventional electrostatics without EQ are like the 10th row.  The best dynamic speakers are like the 12th row or further removed from the stage.  The best position for listening is just over the conductor's head.  The next best I have experienced only a few times in my life, when I was standing to the left of the conductor, still immersed in the orchestra, from a standing position when I was the violin soloist.  A little comedown from that is when I still play in the orchestra from a seated position.  But the next best after that is the front row center in the audience, a significant deterioration from that.  From the 2nd row and going further away, it is all completely unacceptable by my standards.

Using EQ, I had major advances in connecting intimately with the music.  Let me be completely honest.  Even my speaker, which is the best for detail of any speaker ever made (the only competition was from the Stax F81 and original Quad 57 which both have even worse practical problems than mine), is woefully inadequate to compete with the supreme naturalness, balance and detail of the intimate live experience I described.  Judicious EQ goes a long way in getting intimate detail, even if the end result is highly flawed vs the real, intimate thing.  For example, although I described the outstanding string bass recording in the Carnival of the Animals, the live feeling where the right speaker becomes the bass instrument, is only possible with my EQ settings.  Without EQ, forget about it.  But with EQ, the buzz on the string from the bow is almost exactly like live.  The bass freq of the instruments are tight and with the proper growl, due to more revelation of the midrange and lower HF overtones.  

I have no doubt that someone with interest in getting more musical revelation from most speakers could convert their dull 15th row sound into 5th row sound using judicious EQ.  There would be certain tonal anomalies, but carefully done these anomalies are far preferable to the 10 blankets of veil without EQ.  

viber6
2,448 posts
 

kren0006,

I have long thought about whether musical information is passing over my head in the 1st row.  Certainly, it is reasonable to think that further back offers better balance of all the info.  So I tried many positions at various distances, and found that further back offered more balance, but that balance offered deteriorated info of everything.  All instruments were more veiled.  Just read my previous post to see what I found are the best listening positions. 

Mercury Living Presence made the best commercial recordings which offered everything I desire.  Read the interesting article by Tom Fine on page 133 of the 2nd most recent Stereophile.  His father, Howard Fine was the engineer behind those great recordings in the 1950's and 1960's, and his mother, Wilma Cozart Fine did the mastering work, transferring the analog tapes to CD after Howard died.  Howard used a single microphone 10-12 feet above the conductor's head for the mono recordings, which sound astounding for their balance AND intimate detail.  The later stereo recordings used this central mike, and a pair of spaced omni's close in front of the left and right orchestra.  The mikes were Schoeps, which had a presence peak, a form of EQ.  I was surprised to learn that no EQ was used, even though the recordings sound like EQ was used.  My Neumann mikes are like the Schoeps, so in effect they used EQ.

So when I got my EQ in 1995, my inspiration was these great sounding Mercury's, which are still considered tops.  I couldn't be intrusive with the orchestras and other ensembles I recorded, so my mike placement wasn't as ideal as from Mercury.  I think you would agree that Mercury had it right.  I did pretty well with my mike placement right behind the conductor's head.

viber6
2,448 posts
 

kren0006,

I have reservations about the new GaN.  It seems tempting from the tech talk, but I found the Merrill 114 very warm compared to my Mytek Pascal based amp, and Rouge IceEdge.  I surmise that the majority of this group and many of Jay's YT listeners might have found the Merrill preferable to his Mystery amp because of the former's high degree of warmth.  This warmth wasn't grossly euphonic as with tube amps, and the Merrill still had decent clarity. 

Another example is the new LSA Voyager GaN (see that thread).  I never heard it.  YYZ owned it, liked it, but still found it warm compared to his Benchmark AHB2 which he still says has the highest neutrality and clarity of any amp he has tried.

Since you seem to want warmish amps to go with your Spendor speakers, you should strongly consider the Voyager GaN.  At $3k, it probably would beat everything else you are considering for power, clarity combined with a little warmth, offering best sound and also great value for you.

kren0006
1,859 posts
 

Nah, my next target is a Luxman integrated (590axii, 509x, or 595ase) for the Spendors. When I eventually get to Sasha DAW hopefully down the road, then at that level maybe some better separates in the $25-30k ballpark but that'll be a six-figure system which isn't in the cards just yet

viber6
2,448 posts
 

The better separates could include the LSA Voyager GaN for $3k instead of Luxman for $30k.  The only risk for the Voyager is a re-stocking fee of about $600, so you will want to audition it from a private source.  Not a bad proposition even with the re-stocking fee, considering the overwhelming value that it represents.  Contact yyz for his further thoughts, although he sold his modded Voyager to cascadesphil I think.  So you can contact cascadesphil.  Either of them, and the numerous posters on that LSA thread will give you lots of info.

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