Amplification for Wilson Watt Puppy 7s or 8s


Putting together a new system and would like feedback from those within the community who own Puppy 7s or 8s in particular. I am trying to narrow my choice regarding amplification from the following. Would appreciate your feedback regarding your experience using these in your system:

VTL S-400 Reference; VTL 450 monos w/ VTL T.L6.5 preamp
BAT VK 150SE monos w/ VK 52SE preamp
VAC Phi-200 monos w/renaissance preamp
E.A.R. 890 monos w/E.A.R. 912 preamp

My listening room is 25"L x 17'W x 12'T . I listen to all genres of jazz, blues, house music, classical, gospel and spoken word. Yes it is eclectic but I truly love all forms of music. From time to time I will turn the volume up quite high but this is the exception, not the rule.

I hope to acquire most, if not all, of the components pre-owned but well taken care of. If I need to buy new, I will as a last resort.
winston50
I know this is an old post, but I hope someone can help. I just picked up a pair of wp8 and am currently using with a CJ CT-5 pre-amp which is single-ended only, and a Spectron Premiere 7-7 channel amp.

I love the CJ, and want to keep it, but am considering selling my multi-channel Spectron. I would consider a high power tube amp (must be rca capable), Spectron mono-blocks, or any other experienced recommendation.
Thanks,
Brett

Any comments wouyld be greatly appreciated.
The WP8s are very tube friendly so you have a wide range of amps available. You do need some power, but the requirement is not crazy. The National sales manager for Wilson ran a set of our MA-1s on his WP8s and they are only 140 watts. He only got our bigger amp when he went to the Maxx.

ARC is also popular with the Wilson crowd; I would expect that CJ would be a nice match, if you can afford it, CAT would be good too. VTLs work great on them... like I said there are a lot of amps for you to try.
I used to have wp7s with a Spectron MIIISE amp and VTL 7.5 pre. I replaced the spectron and vtl with the APL UA-S1, it made à big difference and i havent heard the Wilsons as good before or after that. In short the sound moved from hifiish to live.
i have used a krell fpb 600c with my watt puppy 7's for 6 years or so. it sounds pretty damn good. i have heard many suggest that this is not a great match but there is much to like about them to my ears. my next amp will be spectral and find them to be a fine mate with watt puppy's too. whatever you get, i have come to find they do love power. enjoy your quest.
Thanks guys. I contacted Martin Collms, of HiFiCritic, after he reviewed the WP8s and he very much favored high power/current Krell amps. Hes not a fan of any class D amps. He felt they lacked an organic completness to the sound, though he did not actually say he heard the Spectron amps. Of course the Spectrons don't use a switching power supply like most of the other class D amps use, do to the noise they add. My own experience with older Krell amps is that they have iron fisted control of the bass, but their midrange and high freqs may be a little lacking.

I dropped off my Premiere 7 at Spectron for a check up, and borrowed a T+A A1530R 170 watt stereo amp. I was very impressed and thought the combo sounded great, but knew when I got my Spectron Premiere 7 (one transformer per front channel) back, that it would vastly improve the WP8s. Well, I have to tell you after 2 hours of warm-up, and maybe several hours of listening, I did not have the same involvment in the music, possibly the lack of wine at the time. The Spectron was incredibly clean, fast with great frequency extension, but almost like analog compared to digital-there seemed to be a certain sterility that I did not notice with the T+A. Maybe Martin brainwashed me.

With that said, I have left the Spectron on all night and will do some more listening.

My plan is to sell the Premiere 7 and look at a pair of Musician III Mk2 Mono-Blocks, VTL 450, BAT 600, ARC, or Pass X350.5

QUESTION-I notice many of the higher end amps are XLR only. Can I use XLR to RCA adapters with little degradation to the sound, as my CJ CT-5 is single-ended only?

Any other input will be greatly appreciated.