Most transparent amp you've heard?

Agree with Pubul57. It is interesting to be able to hear the engineers signature in a recording, not to mention the sound stage changes from one recording to another.

When Ken Stevens of CAT was asked by a resistor manufacturer what kind of flavor he wanted, his answer was that he wanted them to have the flavor of water. I think he meant that the sound of a piece of equipment should be like a chameleon so that issues of bass, soundstaging, imaging, dynamics, etc are a refelection of the recording, not an overlay on the recording. I think this is he definition of neutrality and transparency. I think the CAT was very transparent in this sense, and to an even greater degree the Atma-sphere amps, at least with my Merlins.

Hi guys, You want me to define what I mean by transparent. To me a transparent component is one that passes the signal with the least harm to the signal passing through it.

How do you know if one component is causing less harm than another? I guess that depends on what you consider harm.

What I'am after is a very low noise floor, low distortion but also musical amp. I have Innersound Kaya speakers and love how transparent they sound.

The amp I have now {Parasound Halo A21} is good enough for any normal human being, but you know how it is in this hobby we are always looking for better.

Sean

Sean, do you need more than 6-12 watts for those speakers? Do you know what the impedance is like across the spectrum?

Pubul57, Yes they require more power than that. From the Stereophile measurements the impedance on the panel starts above 50 Ohms at 1.6 Kohms and drops to 3.3 Ohms at 15 Kohms and continues down to .5 Ohms at 29 Kohms. JA also goes on to say that use of a classic tube amp would result in very rolled off highs.