I have driven Contour 1.4s with a Musical Fidelity a308 for the past few years. In my setup, this combination has plenty of control, and a sound stage both wide and deep. The more muscle, the better the Dynaudios seem to perform. If you are fine with getting a used amp, I would recommend the a308. I think it is rated something like 150W in 8 ohms and a dampening factor of 1400.
Dynaudio Focus 110.....Integrated amp????
Over the last year I have had several pairs of reasonably good Hi Fi speakers, Merlin's, Fritz Carbon 7, and Dynaudio Focus 110. The Focus 110 is my favorite based on my room size and listening habits. I have run into a bit of a problem though....amplification. For two years now I have been happy with the entry level Nad 356 Bee. It's musical rather than clinical, has heavy bass, and decent sound stage, and it does a good job driving the 110's. I have decided though that I want more transparency, tighter bass, and bigger soundstage with better highs. Recently I bought a Marantz PM 8004 and was blown away by the huge soundstage, warm detailed midrange, and extended highs. Up until this amp I have hated an extended upper range. I though I had found the perfect amp until I started to pay attention to the bass....it's just not there. After trying out several T and class D amps, the Virtue M9001, 30 Watt Nuforce, and Nad D7050 I am convinced that 110's need a lot of power or an amp that has a large damping factor. The Virtue, Nuforce, and Nad have very large damping factors and control the 110's very we'll putting out lots of tight bass at moderate listening levels. What I am hoping for is that maybe there is a Marantz PM 8004 type amp with the bass control of a class D amp. I'm open to any suggestions, would maybe upgrading to the PM-14S1 do the job??
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I agree the MF A308 is a great amp, however the DF is 140, and not 1400. The amp just has plenty of muscle due to its power supply. Also, damping factor is just something you do not need to be concerned with. Read this thread, http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1283928090&openfrom&2&4#2 and this article, http://www.trueaudio.com/post_013.htm IMHO, I don't like Class D amps because as you said, they sound artificial. I'm sure the MF A308 would give you the desired performance, or look for something with that type of build quality, an amp that is very stable with the speakers 4 ohm load, and will double power, or close to double, with the 4 ohm rating compared to the 8 ohm rating. The A308 is 150w into 8 ohms and 300w into 4 ohms. Since you say moderate listening levels, and with the speakers sensitivity being 84db, I doubt that you could have too much power, unless you went way beyond the speakers capability. |
Another thought about damping factor is that if you do the calculations to see what damping factor is actually achieved at the woofers' terminals, it is much less than the amps' specification due to speaker wire and speaker crossover. There will be a very slight difference at the woofers' terminals between an amp with 100 DF compared to an amp with 2500 DF, but in each case the DF will be well under 50. |
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