Heard any good hybrid amps lately?

My only experience is with the Aesthetix Atlas and an older Counterpoint, many years ago.

The Counterpoint sounded great when it worked. It had serious reliability issues. It drove my NHT 3.3's really well and brought out the best in them. After the Counterpoint I moved on to tubes for 10 years. Primarily a set of Quicksilver V4's, another great amp.

The Atlas may be the finest amplifier I have ever heard. I used tube amps for years before the Atlas. Now I cannot imagine using any other amp. In fact, since having it in my system I stopped reading anything related to audio, websites, magazines, etc., and just concentrate on listening to music. I am only on here today because I have a few items for sale and wanted to check on someone's feedback.

IMHO, the Atlas truly combines the best of SS and Tube designs and serves the music well.

Good Luck on your search.

BTW, there is an Atlas for sale on this website at a great price right now. I have no affliation with the seller or with Aesthetix, I am just an extremely happy owner.

I agree with Cipherjuris that the Lamm hybrids are incredible. (And he's right, that they are indeed pricey.)

The full class A 110 wpc M1.2's are great, and slightly (very slightly, IMHO), better than the Class A/AB, (albeit heavily biased into class A), M2.2's, but the 220 wpc M2.2s have double the power and will drive virtually any speaker, and sonically, they are very, very close to the M1.2s. (I like having lots of power reserves for those peak demands.) The M2.2s are one of my two favorite amplifiers, (the other being the VAC Phi 300, which is a fully tubed design). Used, these go for around $11K.

If you can't afford those, the predesscors to the M1.2/M2.2s (i.e. the M1.1s and the M2.1s) are very close sonically. However, they do have just a bit of darkness in the upper treble response, so careful system matching is required. (I own the M2.1s, and they sound incredible, but it took quite a while to find the very best speaker cable to reduce the dark sound to a nearly inaudible level, that cable being the Nordost Valhallas.) Used these go for around $7K.

And, I agree that with a nice NOS 6922 tube in each amp, the sonics get even better. (I use an Amperex pinched waist 6922 myself)

My two cents worth anyway.

I second Kurt tank for the beautiful LAMM 1.2 or M 2.2 that does an heaven match with my CJ ART and my PARSIFAL OVATION
You got a lot of voicing and mids to die..........

I'm currently using a Space Tech Lab VP-180 hybrid.All their amps and pre amps are hand crafted using the latest propreitary technology.The emphasis is on performance,so if you're looking for eye candy this won't float your boat.
www.space-tech-labs.com.Just for the record,in my system, it's the best amp I've ever owned.

Kurt,

My issue with all the Nordost cables has always been a thin sound and a bit too bright on top -- but I have not heard them with my Lamms and Ayre. I'm running mostly Purist Anniversary PCs and Purist Anniversary and Dominus Ferox on my sources, VD Rev 2.0 between Ayre preamp and Lamms and VD Rev 2.0 speaker cable. I've been wondering if I should try Purist or some other speaker cable. Your thoughts?

Ed