Most resolving, transparent amps.

I think a good analogy of the term transparency would be the difference between looking through a dirty window as opposed to one that is extremely clean. In audio, I believe transparency is when the music's natural acoustics, ambience/reverberations along with the original signal are mostly preserved when the sound reaches your speakers. This is usually accomplished through components that have a very short signal path with good engineering & quality parts. It was mentioned above that passives are very successful in being very transparent which I find to be true. It doesn't take an audio engineer to figure why this is so since a passive has very few internal parts. In keeping with solid state amps, I think ARCs 100.2, Bat VK200 are very transparent. But it should also be mentioned as it was that a recording should be of sufficient quality, containing enough information for transparency to be present in varying degrees as well.

The better Krell amps! In my opinion for a power amp to be truly transparent it almost has to be a non-tubed design. I have never heard (which does not mean that they don't exist) a tubed amp that one could truly call transparent. For the most part, tube amps will add their footprint to the sonic signature of the music, whether that be considered warmth, distortion, smoothness?

In my opinion a transparent amp does not impart any sonic signature of its own, it just conveys the music from the source, cable and preamp as it is delivered to it. It does not add or detract anything. I have not heard all of the amps mentioned herein, but my Krell FPB does this better than any other amp I have owned or heard in my system. It doesn't take or add life, veil or add musicality, create or reduce grain or grit. It does seem to have excellent control of the music and not run out of power in my set-up/room. I can hear the ambience in different recording, the decay and leading edge transients in different records and clearly conveys the footprint of changes in cables. Additionally, it is built like the proverbial tank by a company that has been around quite some time.

All this being said, I don't know if this is what everybody wants in an amplifier?

I also vote for atmasphere's line up of OTL amps; they seem to be in another league: resolution,imaging and proper timbre is where these amps excell in my opinion.

Boulder 2060
Edge NL Reference
Halcro DM 68
Gryphon Antellion Solo Signatures

I humbly submit Italy's Delta Sigma - simply the most transparently pure I have ever heard with shocking, lightning fast dynamics and extension to 3Mhz.

After visiting them last fall, I decided to distribute after hearing the first note. Amazing how it handles piano and voice. Honorable and ethical people, too.

Jim Ricketts/tmh audio