What are monoblock amps?

Oops! I seem to have posted while someone was making the exact same points - apologies for the repetition.

Without going into the theory of it (enough's been said in the previous postings) I can tell you that when I 'upgraded' from a very very good stereo power amp (Sim Audio's Celeste 4250SE) to a pair of Legacy monoblocs I felt, let's say a 20 % difference in sound. Pl. note I didn't say 'improvement', but a difference. I consider that difference an improvement but opinions may vary. It wasn't a very pure experiment of course because a) my speakers are Legacy and there may be a better match betw. them and the monoblocs and b) the monoblocs produce 800 into 4 each while Sim did only 500 into 4 per channel. Still, unless you want to go nuts and spend a lifetime on all this matching crap, etc., I think it was a good enough experiment. I stayed with the monos. Also pl. note that interconnects MUST be short, pref. as short as possible, because the signal that travels in them is low power signal and (if you take cable talk seriously of course) you can lose more of the signal in interconnects than in speaker wire (where the signal generated by power amps is very very strong). So, if you can't place all your stuff betw. speakers with short inteconnects and short speaker wire betw. monos and speakers go for short interconnects and longer speakerwire, which I did. And I'm very happy. Just don't lose the forest for the trees, that is music for the sound. Good luck.

Here's something I've not said before (heh heh): You might want to consider reading The Complete Guide to Highend Audio. Good luck, and happy listening!

All of you are quite incorrect. Monoblock amplifiers are a special breed of amplifier created back in the Phil Spector 'Golden' era of recording. They are specially designed to reproduce mono recordings. People in the know have commented on their surrealistic realism as compared to stereo, or more so the new quattro amps we are seeing from the slavic* regions. *home stereo.

An amp category that fits between Stero amps and mono-bloc amps is the dual-mono amp. And I think it is an excellent way to go. The dual mono amp essentially has two amplifiers contained in one chassis. I've never owned mono-blocs, and have always questioned whether or not two separate amps can truly be matched, ie sound identical. Of course, to some extent, you could say the same thing about dual mono amps, or any true balanced component. To illustrate this, I have two Sonic Frontiers Ultra Jitter Bugs-- theorhetically they are identical, but in practice one sounds relaxing and laid back and the other is distinctly more aggressive. I called SF about this and they just said that is normal manufacturing variation, and they wern't interested in doing anything about it. Of course there was no attempt to specifically match these components, but it sure was an ear opener to me about manufacturing variability. And I was amazed that I could even detect a difference between the two. Still, decisions have to be made, and I chose to go with the dual mono McCormack DNA-2DX rather than DNA-1DX mono-blocs. There are quite a few excellent dual mono amps on the market including the Krell FPB series, Levinson dual monos (although Levinson didn't work well in my system-- too analytical), and others. Easy listening.