2. amps-preamps
  3. 1231990832

ICE Amps for classical music?

I listen to classical orchestral music at heavy volume. I detest reproduced music for always sounding more or less electronic and not acoustic. Real music is beautiful in a way reproduced music--so far at least-- never is. I have become curious about Wyred4sound amps because of low price and high watts. I am wondering if any of you "mostly classical" listeners have heard these amps and feel they do no more damage to music than amps which are NOT ICE amps. I am using a Plinius SA100 now and have used a VAC 100/100,
a Bedini Classic 100/100, a Music Reference RM-9, and other tube and solid state amps. They all had their pluses and minuses, of course, but for least electronic, clearly the Bedini was the winner. So what about ICE amps?
rpfef
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,149 posts
 
Are there any amps that publish specs regarding 1 ohm loads?

Not sure how common that is these days. The market must be quite limited.
weseixas
519 posts
 
True dat!
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,149 posts
 
Interesting I know of one case of a discerning A'goner who is also a recording industry professional I believe that used Bel Canto ref1000's to drive at first Apogee and later Avangarde Trios in their system, with a high degree of satisfaction. The fact that this amp could drive two such radically different speaker designs at two ends of the spectrum to a high degree of satisfaction was one factor in my deciding to go that way, though I sprung for the more costly mkiis mainly as a result of their more tube pre-amp friendly specs and additional power supply refinements.

I may have said this earlier (can't recall) but the move to this amp has put my ystem in the same league at least with the best systems I have heard, and conquering playback of classical music to that level was the final and toughest
barrier to break through.
muralman1
1,527 posts
 
Weseixas, Here I though The Scintilla was the only one ohm speaker. I am curious what ribbon speaker you have. I talked to Henry about this among some other things. If you want to know what a certain amp can do, call the builder.

There is a catch. The 250 watt H20, though 93% efficient, still needs the Fire preamp. It sends a boost to the H2O. With the two, I can drive my Scintillas to an in the room grand piano. As a warning, though, cables and source can react terrible with the H2O duo. With the right source and cables...... sky's the limit.

I am in N. California if anyone wants to hear what I have.
muralman1
1,527 posts
 
Mapman, I can't say how happy I am to hear your testament. Class D has got such an undeserved bad rap over the last 7 years.

It has been my experience that a great class D amp requires great everything else. By great, I don't mean expensive necessarily. The Fire preamp was made to work with the demands of a class D amp, but it also is superb with any other fine amp. Almost all tube amps match well to class D.

I still use Speltz's Anti - Cables for the ICs. I have found very thin ribbon SCs to be, by far, the best SCs.
More to discover