ICE Amps for classical music?

So, back to the OPs original question. While ICE amps are a tremendous value and can pack a punch in the power department, are they able to make beautiful music? That is, do they have the depth, warmth, flow, naturalness, transparency, and beauty of live acoustic music? There are many amps that make an impressive sound. I would suggest there are very few amps that accomplish the OPs original intent.

I know what people are going to say. I suspect to approach this goal, you will need to mate your ICE amp with am excellent and costly tubed preamp. There is no way around this. Perhaps people with direct experience can be more direct as to how to get there.

On another note, I now find that reproduced orchestral music sounds great at low levels and at concert levels. I am also finding that it sounds awesome at very loud levels. Playing orchestral music louder than it should be played, and finding that it sounds absolutely wonderful, is an unusual treat in audio. Most stereos at high levels will have a soundstage that falls apart and moves too far forward, with peaks that are harsh and fatiguing. It is possible to put something together that is musical and accurate when loud.

"do they have the depth, warmth, flow, naturalness, transparency, and beauty of live acoustic music?"

Yes they do. I'm just guessing you've never heard one?

They work in all departments for classical music.

I've found a tube pre-amp to be a very good fit however I looked specifically for an ICEPower based amp that implemented higher input impedance than stock ICEPower modules which are 10K ohms I believe in order to minimize distortion which can wreck havoc on classical music in particular.

The Bel Canto Ref 1000 mkiis are 100K input impedance unbalanced. Older less expensive BC Ref 1000s (not mkii) are stock 10K input impedance as is the S300 I believe.

Wyred4Sound amps are ~60K ohm input impedance.

There are others as well, but many vendors of IcePower amps go with the stock Icepower unit and basic configuration. That may not be a good match on paper with some tube pre-amps having higher output impedances.

Rtn1, In answer to your statement as how one gets to great music with class D, I will give a brief summary.

First of all, your notion a tubed preamp is necessary is far off the mark. I have a class A preamp, and would never consider trading it for any tubed affair.

I started some 5 years ago with my attempt to make good music out of class D. I use to use all Pass Labs gear. Back then the Pass preamp hung on until my amp builder made a preamp that produces miracles. It works perfectly with the low impedance of ICE modules.

Through all latter changes, the amps (mono H2O) and preamp (H2O Fire) have remained. With every improvement I made in my system, my power end obliged passing on the improvement.

There are tubes in my system, four to be exact. They are in my Audio Note DAC. This particular DAC has been transformed with a minor adjustment replacing four diodes. I have found, on my system, all the great number of oversampling CD players, including SACD, sound atrocious.

Last of all, I found out how utterly important the cables are. This system is so transparent that every misstep will announce itself loudly. All insulated cables produce a hiss. Paul Speltz, on his site, describes the phenomena succinctly. My system proves Paul is correct. I found no speaker cable served my needs. So, I created one.

To summarize, the only component that has a signature is the AN DAC, and what a marvelous sound that is. My system will match your, "depth, warmth, flow, naturalness, transparency, and beauty of live acoustic music," plus dig deep into hither to unknown recesses of every CD. All the 90 db dynamic range is utilized. My 1 ohm speakers sound the same at any loudness level. No other type amp can do that through 1 ohm speakers.

Muralman1,

Are you using H2O amplifiers to drive a 1 ohm scinnie,is this correct?

The H2O was to replace your Pass amplifiers ?

I do understand about the high and low difference when playing a 1 ohm load, I'm having the same issues with my 1 ohm ribbon, perfect at low to moderate levels then there is a sweet spot, above this the system loses it's near
perfect balance.