Improvement in Musicality for home theater system


As a first time poster I was hoping to get some feedback on improving the musical delivery, basically more refined sound from my hodgepodge of an old and new system. I have a smaller 16 by 12 room with heavy leather furniture and wood/ area rug, 1904 vintage. Due to the space and budget limitations, I purchased the Revel M126Be’s and had to ditch my 25 year old Proceed AVP for an Antham AVM 70 and had Audio Breakthroughs in Manhassett, NY come out and set it up. They hooked in a 20 year old Velodyne servo driven sub woofer. Now to my question: will replacing a 20 year old plus Adcom 5 channel amp with an Antham or Pass labs be a significant change? For source I mainly use a Blue Sound streamer. 

hondaron

Wow, this discussion went sideways really fast!!  so, based on this:

I was hoping to get some feedback on improving the musical delivery, basically more refined sound

I really think you do need to replace your Adcom amp.  I used to run these amps a long time ago.  While they were the "good for the money" amp and sounded nicer than the normal consumer electronics crap, they really are not that great.  Especially when you are pairing them with the Anthem AVM and the Revel M126Be (which is an excellent choice in my opinion).  The old Adcom amps were nice, but they were a bit warmer sounding and did not have good resolution at all.  Basically, the sound was a mess and you would not get good "separation of instruments" at all.

The new Anthem amps are not bad, but I think you can do better because they are not as engaging as other amps.  The Pass Labs amps are very nice, but they do have a unique sound.  Very smooth with excellent resolution, but have more of a "controlled" type of sound (i.e. they are not as dynamic as other amps).  If you like this type of sound, then great.  The "XA" Pass Labs models are "full Class A" and are even warmer and slower sounding.  Many love the sound of Pass Labs.  I would say if you wanted to keep the "type of sound" that you had with Adcom, but with much more resolution and refinement, Pass Labs is likely a good choice.

On the other hand, if you want a more revealing and transparent amp with a lot of dynamics, then I would recommend looking for a Luxman.  Maybe try to find a used Luxman M-700u amp.  There is a M-900u from The Music Room for $10.4k.  I don't know your budget.  Or you can go for a Luxman integrated for about $5-6k. 

There are a lot of Luxman products on ebay that are shipping from Japan.  I would be cautious of these because they are almost all wired for 100V  AC (Japan's standard) and will not work well with the 120V US standard.

 

Thanks for all the really great suggestions. What are your thoughts on getting a good $ 5k amp like Mac, Parasound or Luxman as one choice and compare in home with my second choice being the Pass Labs integrated? 

When setting up the system do your 2 ch system first

Absolutely first.

What are your thoughts on getting a good $ 5k amp like Mac, Parasound or Luxman

A Parasound A21+ would work very well with your current system. 

I have an Anthem MRX 540 with a Luxman 507, fantastic combination.  I went from an AVM 50 with monoblocks and the Luxman to this and I'm very very happy to have gotten rid of the extra amps.

Among your list, Parasound would be second, but warm, syrupy by comparison.

Pass and Mc after that. Honestly this makes a good triad. Listen to Luxman, Pass and Mc for yourself, they are different, so different I would never recommend you buy either based on anyone elses recommendation. You’ll develop a very strong opinion of your own.

Best,

 

Erik

Thanks folks, I listened to the speakers and made the choice of the Revels over the B&W’s bookshelf and happy I made the choice that was right for me. and believe me the B&W’s are very good. Well it seems as though I have to go listen again to the amps all you guys recommended. Not a big fan of Mac, but thru it out just to see what stocked. Parasound, Luxman, and Pass Labs will be my final team, trying to keep it around $5k? I’ll get back to you in a little bit. Thanks for all the help and great suggestions. BRW when I listened to the Pass with the Revels, it sounded real good, but like some folks have said, I missed the engagement.