It has been a few years, but in a rare visit to a regional audio shop, I don’t live near any, they insisted I hear the Bel Canto Ref600m monos with a pair of Maggie’s. The sound stuck with me, and they were well reviewed in the major publications. Thought it worth mentioning, might be worth a look.
Excellent Solid State or Hybrid Monoblocks Recommendations
I am interested in staying under 15k for a pair of high performing monoblocks, sold state or hybrid, to acquire.
My current system is an Aric Audio Motherlode preamp, a Space-Tech super tube rectifier, Teac NT-505 modded dac, outboard clock, Aerial Acoustic 7T modded speakers, ENIGMAcoustics Sopranino supertweeters, Grover Huffman Pharoah biwire speaker cables, Zavfino Silver Dart interconnects, Melco 6TB server, Melco CD transport, Waversa Reference USB filter between the cd transport and server, Waversa Reference LAN filter, Synergistic Research active grounding block, and Synergistic Research Ethernet Switch UEF.
My modded JC1 monoblocks sound heavenly. However, I am having issues with no sound coming out of 1 channel. My modded PassLab X250.5 amps sound really good but lack the top end sparkle, air and litheness of the Parasounds JC1s. I am gonna fire back up my Canary CA-160 modded tube monoblocks but am not wild about the tube maintenance requirements.
So, I seek another pair of monoblocks that excel in clarity, balance across the frequency spectrum but also present upper registers with delicacy, spaciousness, and nice instrument separation. I am looking at Audio Van Alstine 750 wpc monoblocks and the Thrax black monoblocks up for sale here on Audiogon. Other suggestions?
Thanks in advance.
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- 106 posts total
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My first impressions of the BHK300’s are they are that they have more pop. When listening to Classical music, and it goes from a few violins playing to the whole orchestra playing, the sound is more realistic. The jump is sound is fast and clear. Having come from a Hegel H390, the difference was dramatic. The separation of instruments and people was also noticeable better. All the Best. |
Congrats! Those were very tempting for the price. Which tubes are you currently running? I found the 6DJ8 Amperex A frames (~$70/pr on eBay for NOS) to be a great reference tube. They do everything well, excellent imaging and very balanced across all frequencies. Great place to start if you're running stock tubes, especially since they're easy to find as NOS and reasonably priced. My current preferred pair is a set of Westinghouse 6DJ8 medical grade tubes (likely rebranded Mullards) that have more of a 'live' feel to them, which win out slightly over the Amperex. I tried a lot of others ranging from Valvo to Russian NOS to BHK recommended Tungsram, but the Mullard and Amperex tubes sound best to me so far. For reference, the BHK 250 even manages to drive my MBL 101s at moderate listening levels. Great amp with plenty of power for most speakers. |
@ozzy where did u purchase the Michi’s? @ curiousjim, thanks for the update on the sonics |
- 106 posts total