Best multichannel amp for music?

Jrwr7 - I would not dispute that Theta makes great stuff, and may be the best stuff in my system. I have a Theta transport and DAC (Carmen and IIIa), and they blew away anything else I tried when I was auditioning CD players. However, something doesn't quite add up. The Dread just doesn't have as good bass or imaging as the Bryston. If that's not an amp/speaker mismatch, then the Dread just isn't as good at those things as the Bryston, and I want to address that before upgrading the preamp or speakers. If I am being thick and missing something, please advise.

Nuforce has now been recommended twice on this thread. Has anyone had any direct experience with Nuforce products and either Snell speakers or a Theta front end? Thanks. -Dave

I think you should check out rotel,b&k, and odyssey; I have had m200's from b&k and odyssey's mono extreme se's; they were excellant products;the Odyssey's have a 20 yr transferrable warranty to the second owner also!

Never heard Odyssey. However, I've heard lots of Rotel and some B&K, and to my ears, neither comes close to either Bryston or Theta. Anyone else? There have been some great responses so far, please keep them coming! -Dave

Do I understand you correctly that what I've got is a bad amp/speaker match?

Yes - your bass needs a Bryston style amp (more punch and control) but you prefer a warmer sounding amp for the midrange. You might try putting a sock in the speaker port (rear) and see how that sounds - it will increase the damping at LF (below the port tuning) then use tone controls to bring the bass down a few db - it may just give you that punch you are missing.

Dvae, don't know if you're still searching, and sorry it took so long for me to get back to you. However, I'm not technical enough to tell you about impedance and damping factors, but I do know that specs don't tell the whole story. There are many other factors within the amps design that contribute to it's performance. I only know what I've read, not having benefit of trying these amps myself. Parasound supposedly has a very nice low end and probably not as bright as Bryston. Very good wpc and response into 4ohm as well. Bass response has always been the domain of Bryston and Krell. Having said that, I've heard that the Titan does everything well, and has very good bass response, but is huge and expensive (5k used?). It's smaller sibling, the Aurora, is still very powerful with excellent bass and sweet highs, at least according to one review. The Nuforce mch3se7 is supposed to be the one of the sweetest digital amps out there, and most digital amps have excellent bass. Personally, I'm thinking seriously about getting the Aurora, the Nuforce, or an original Dread. Good luck in your search. Jeff