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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!


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cleeds
5,794 posts
 

jays_audio_lab

Overall, qobuz seems to have better sound but not on every song. Some albums are identical.

Can you name a few tracks or albums that you think sound "better" on one service or the other? That could give us some insight into your preferences because, as we all know, something that sounds different isn’t always better.

viber6
2,442 posts
 

kren0006,

Not at all.  Cal Dreaming is a poorly recorded song that led me to a different preference than the other song which I don't know.  But I have an open mind to report what I hear, and change my mind when the evidence is clear.  On the other song, the 2500 had clear superiority in many aspects, and overall I preferred it.  

Switching gears to live unamped music heard at different distances, mid hall sound is definitely more spacious than 1st row or stage sound.  Close up sound has more HF content than distant sound, and can sound congested and harsh.  Now the 2500 has set a standard for spatiality and naturalness, so the question is how will other units such as mentioned by ricevs compare?  I still perceive that the 1000 has more HF content, but now believe that a fair amount of that HF content is distortion, compared to the 2500.  Will another battery/inverter unit reveal the comparable spaciousness of the 2500 plus more HF undistorted content which are the characteristics of live natural music heard close?  How will the flagship S5000 do against the 2500?  I expect Jay to find out for himself, and then demo it for us.

This Stromtank has been a great learning experience, which I think is just the start of great things to come, as other battery/inverters are properly compared in different systems and with different recordings.  Better recordings will tell the truth, but lousy processed recordings are not worth the investment in the best power products.

kren0006
1,859 posts
 

Okay, but I think you’re wrong and the 2500 actually lets through more high frequency content with better clarity. Let’s see what WC says - he’s in the room.

This is perhaps analogous to the Rouge trial, where you thought it had better high frequency content and clarity, but others like me and WC said, no, it didn’t, it was inferior there as well as all other areas which of course is nothing to be ashamed of given the price gap there, but it was what it was.

Different preferences, different hearing abilities, different abilities to assess what we hear - why different folks like different things

viber6
2,442 posts
 

No, I call a spade a spade.  At first listen, there is more HF energy in the S1000, but further listening shows that this HF (or possibly upper midrange) energy has a significant amount of distortion in it.  No question that the HF content of the S2500 has more purity and naturalness.  A simple analogy is an old radio tuned slightly off.  At the center of tuning for 710 AM, the sound is fine, but at 709 or 711 there is more HF energy heard, but it is obvious that this added HF energy is all junky distortion.  This analogy is highly exaggerated, but the S1000 appears to be a tiny bit like the mistuned radio producing more distortion and less natural music than the S2500.  It remains to be seen whether the cheap units mentioned by ricevs will produce more distortion than the S1000.  

The simplest thing Jay can do is to demo the system with and without the S1000.  We might laugh our heads off saying how pure even the S1000 is compared to without it.  Looked at another way, if the reduction of perceived distortion via the best (say the S5000) is 99%, what is the reduction of perceived distortion via the cheap unit, or the S1000 or S2500?  That will determine how much money to spend on the very best, or settle with the best buy which is still a significant improvement.

I still say that the entire system, including the power amp will benefit, so the S5000 may be the ultimate cost-no-object way, and also the best buy, because even the S2500 won't be enough for the high power amp as well.  The cheap units mentioned by ricevs can handle the entire system.  This fact alone may make cheap systems compelling for most people, even for Jay if he doesn't want to go for the massive and extremely pricey S5000.  Or Jay could use the S2500 for his front end and try the cheap unit for the power amp.  Or a 2nd S2500 for just the power amp.  A worthwhile speculative $6K trial against the superb $27+ K S2500.  A much better speculation than over $10K for a euphonic flagship Koetsu cartridge.  Expensive cartridges are not returnable, like used underwear.

ricevs
1,539 posts
 

FYI.......the US versions of the Giandel Inverters do not do 240 volts output nor are they split phase....and even though Giandel makes 240V versions for overseas they will not work with the 3060 because they are not split phase. The Stromberg 5000 can put out 240V but I do not see in their specs whether it is split phase or not......if not, then you cannot plug a 3060 into it......I am sure Jay will email them and find out. Interesting that the then $20,000 and now $27,000 Stromberg S2500 was the one that Tom Lyle said that sounded basically the same as the $450 Goal Zero that I use. Just noticed that the Stomberg 5000 cannot do any more than 2400 watt for 30 minutes continuous (5000 watt peaks).......the Giandel 5000 watter can run 4000 watts all day (10,000 watt peaks).

Hardly anyone has a power amp that needs 240V split phase.....there are only a handful on the planet.....the $145,000 Boulder being one of them. Even the Boulder 2160 can run on 120V. Most all other amps will work fine with the Giandel 5000.

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