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Hall of Fame: BIGGEST BADDEST Monster Amps

There have been a lot of posts on:

"tube amps with balls"
"amps to drive my 1 ohm, inefficient speakers"
"amps for rock and roll"
"Levinson, Krell, Bryston, Pass Labs etc"
"sounds more powerful than its rating suggests"
"despite low rating, puts out huge current" etc.

But I somehow find these threads divergent and confusing and still cant seem to short list a new set of monoblocks to biamp (low end) and COMMAND my Magneplanar Tympanis, fill up a large room with EFFORTLESS dynamics and CONTROL the bass with no debates, questions, reservations or tweaky failures.

So let's please hear your thoughts:

What are the all time, hall of fame, MONSTER power amps, where there should be no doubt whatsover about HUGE amounts, of effortlessly dynamic, clean, smooth, audiophile power.

I have to think that for the low end of biamping, this should be a solid state amp, unless someone can really suggest an unusually robust and low maintenance tube amp.

Mark Levinson 20.6?
Pass X-600's?
Bryston 7 B monoblocks?
Parasound monoblocks?

Thank you.
cwlondon
stevecham
3,340 posts
 
Of those currently available, two I would vote for include:

Levinson 33H monoblocks
Krell 750cx monoblocks
nrchy's avatar
nrchy
2,124 posts
 
Parasounds are lightweight compared to the monsters mentioned above. If I had to choose one it would be the Gryphons, those things are... well, monsters!

But my Classe Omicron weighs almost three hundred pounds.
szutinglee
91 posts
 
Burmester 909
Boulder 2050
Jadis JA800
McIntosh MC2KW
sit
315 posts
 
The Yamaha MX10000. Rock solid, solid state powerhouse amp employing some of the highest quality components available at the time (late 70's-very early 80s). Built like a tank. No coloration of the sound. NONE. Simply pure power. I owned MX10000 /CX10000 combination some years back and am SO sorry I let these go. I was driving 3 pair of McIntosh XR-7 Isoplanar Radiator loudspeakers (8ohm), each pair paired with a McIntosh MQ107 Environmental Equalizer. The Mac's really drink up the power in order to really drive the base but boy, the Yamaha had no trouble at all. With the 3 pairs of speakers running simultaneously I was readily able to push the OHM switch on the Yamaha to move from 8ohm to 4ohm for even more distoration free, driving power. I did not venture too often in the the 2ohm range that the Yamaha offered via the switch. I did and do listen to ALL categories of music and found no shortcomings from the Yamaha with any of them. This includes running the amp at very low volumes where I found NO loss of detail and the base still managing to punch me in the breastbone. And hey, this was before the use of the higher quality speaker and interconnect cables hit the scene.
I still have two pair of the XR-7s being driven by a Yamaha MX1000U /CX1000U combination and it sounds terrific (the air moves my trousers when I really crank it up on a more base-laden soundtrack).
For some reason the solid state Yamaha's of yesteryear are overlooked by serious audiophiles. I figure, great, helps keep the price down.
If anyone knows of an MX10000 for sale I kindly invite you to contact me.
whoaru99
98 posts
 
Probably blashpemy, but why not one or two Crown K2's to run the low end?

S/N ratio >100dB
Damping factor >3000

500w/ch @ 8
800w/ch @ 4
1250w/ch @ 2

1600w bridged @ 8
2500w bridged @ 4

All stable/continuous power ratings...

Not saying it's the baddest, because Crown also made a 10kW amp, but it required a 3-phase power circuit.
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