Which Amplifier for Sonus Faber Olympica 3 Speaker


I own a pair of SF Olympica 3 speakers and have narrowed my choices to 2 amplifiers. My tastes lean toward the warmer richer side of the fence. The Hegel 300 or 1 of the LFD amplifiers. On 1 hand the LFD is lower power but quite balanced. The Hegel is approximately the same price but has 250 wats of power plus a built-in DAC. My speakers rquire some power at 90DB efficient but its a 4 ohm load. I have heard the Hegel but with Magico speakers. It sounded good with nice detail and never tipped over the edge. The LFD is playing on my speakers now but drawing comparisons is difficult given different speakers. Any thoughts re these 2 amplifiers is most welcome.
frontier1
I can't find impedance/ phase graphs on yours but:
Typically the Sonus Fabers I've seen the impedance and phase graphs of have been very difficult in the bottom end to drive, even though they are efficient.
They have needed amps that can do good current delivery, that is almost double their watts each halving of impedance from 8ohms to 4ohms to 2ohms 100w 200w 400w you get the idea.
Here linked are just 2 Sonus Fabers read the first few parragraphs and look at the first graph.

http://www.stereophile.com/content/sonus-faber-cremona-loudspeaker-measurements

http://www.stereophile.com/content/sonus-faber-amati-futura-loudspeaker-measurements

Quickly looking at the two amps you mentioned neither are going to do your speakers justice, the Hegel 300 is probably the better proposition, as it has bi-polar output devices which will try to do the doubling trick.
But even it looks a little light on if your Sonus Fabers are anything like the others to drive.

Cheers George

George - the older SF were, as you say, notoriously hard to drive due to impedence and phase angle issues. However, the newer designs are typically much less taxing. The Futura graphs look more like the old designs, which may simply mean that they kept some of the old design. Stereophile did review the Venere 2.5 and found it much easier to drive than older, higher end models. That is not surprising since it is meant to be a more entry level offering. I believe part of the design criteria for the Cremona M was to make it easier to drive than the original Cremona. I believe they probably carried over that philosophy to the Olympica design. Since Stereophile has not measured the Olympica 3 it is hard to know how easy or hard it is to drive. But my guess is that it will much easier to drive than the Cremona or Amati Futura that you reference.

Venere 2.5 Measurements
My local SF dealer demos the speakers with both Audio Research (reference series) and Rowland SS amps with excellent results.