Power amp recommendations for 1000 and under

In response to some of the questions presented in the wonderful replies:

As of now, I have no intention of getting into analog. This may be attributed to the fact that I was born in the late 70's and have never purchased a record. From what I have heard, the sound has some "differences" but I may not be sophisticated enough yet to appreciate them. Neither have I had the privelege of listening to a record without the annoying "pops" and "cracks" (fathers record collection is quite old). I also do not know how widely available records are for some of todays bands that I listen to.

I listen to mostly rock/alternative. Enjoy classical as well.

You might want to try a Sunfire 300 watter, a Bryston 3BST, or an Adcom 5802, all in balanced mode. Quicksilver is good too but I found it makes everything sound the same.

Judging by the equipment that you listed, it would appear that you are striving for a system that is somewhat on the warm and smooth side rather than the ruthlessly revealing / ultra- detailed side. If that is the case, i would personally pick up the used Forte' 3 that is listed here on Agon for $350.

The Forte' 3 is a relatively richly biased Class AB amp that is rated at 200 wpc @ 8 ohms and 350 wpc @ 4 ohms. I know it to be an admirable performer and capable of driving low impedance ( 2 ohm ) loads without much of a fuss. If it is running properly, it will run pretty warm even at idle. It was built and designed by Nelson Pass when he owned / operated Threshold and would be classified as sounding very "sweet, delicate and airy" when everything is dialed in properly.

The low price of this unit leaves you plenty of money to replace the bridge rectifiers with better diodes, install additional filter caps and have a better power cord installed. If you are handy at all, you can do all of the above, including parts and the cost of the amp, for under $500. You will not find an amp that would touch this unit in terms of air, depth / width of soundstage, clarity and focus of image, harmonic "rightness" and just an overall sense of "musicality" in terms of the money invested.

The one drawback to this amp is that it must be left on 24 hrs a day if you want to get max performance / best sonics out of it. This is true of most amps that run warm during normal operation. It will sound best after a 48 - 72 hour "warm-up" period. It is also load sensitive, so if you were to go with some type of highly capacitive speaker cables like Goertz, Chris VH's CAT 5 design or a long run of Kimber 8TC, etc..., you would need to make use of a Zobel ( impedance compensation ) network. This should not scare you ( or anybody else ) from trying this combo, as most of them work very nicely together in my experience. Sean
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McIntosh MC7100, Classe CA100, or Conrad-Johnson 2250, because I like warm, musical sound with very good soundstage. They each can be had used, only a few years old, for $700 or so.

Hello all,

This response is in regard to Sean's last posting about the statement "Judging by the equipment that you listed, it would appear that you are striving for a system that is somewhat on the warm and smooth side rather than the ruthlessly revealing / ultra- detailed side." I was wondering how you were able to know that. I am relatively new audiophile and have much to learn. I just wanted to know if there was some obvious piece of information that you used to determine this. For example, are Vandersteen speakers generally aimed at providing that "warm" sound vs. another brand. Quite frankly, the reason I am asking this is because I do not really know the definition of "warm" in context to sound. Im trying to learn a little about myself as well. I am guessing that I do like the warm sound more since I prefer the sound of Sonus Faber speakers compared to equivalently priced B&W's. Unfortunately, I do not know how big a role amplifiers play in this since the system I heard the Sonus Fabers with was comprised of Rotel equipment and the B&W's were hooked up to Classe equipment.

Again, Thanks