Amplifier question for powering Wilson Sophia

Agree with Sbank, all your choices are good, and it really is personal taste, and totally agree you should throw Ayre into the mix. But, I would still go with tubes if it were my decision, unless SS is a necessity for your situation.

Jtwrace, Wilson has used ARC for many years, and ARC has had Wilson for many years- no secret there! But Wilson's national sale manager used our gear in his own system at home for years also. ARC and Atma-Sphere both can make some power, but are vastly different in every other way, yet the Wilsons seem to serve both approaches quite well.

IMO they are an easy speaker to drive, so one should feel free to experiment, since they don't need that much power.

Put a VT100 MKIII on those and sit back and enjoy. Sophia's do sound much better with tube amps. VTL also works very well.

with all due respect to the posts above, i had a long discussion with dave and daryl wilson a couple of months ago about the amplification they use. from what i understood they use spectral (ss) dma 360's (mit cables) and have used spectral for many years. this is not due to any particular synergy with spectral rather the neutrality, accuracy and speed of the spectral products. they had mixed comments about arc.

Richard_stacy, Daryl has told me that also. However if you look at the design the speakers have taken over the years it is apparent that they are favoring tubes over transistors. The Watt is a great example- it has always been known for its 2-ohm/2KHz aspect- a resonant point that the tweeter had. A trap to reduce energy at that frequency was their solution- hence the 2 ohm impedance at 2KHz.

If a transistor amp encounters that load, it will make more power, the opposite of the desired goal.

If a tube amp encounters that load, it will make less power- precisely what they had in mind.

Wilson has always had a variety of amps around- a good idea if you make speakers :)