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Anyone read TAS's Ten Most Significant Amps?

Wow, seems its the ten most significant amps of the 50's, 60's, 70's, a little 80's. No mention of the Pass Alephs, Hafler TransNova, Krell FPB, Halcro, B&O ICE based or Tripath designs. I think this all goes to show that the Audio rags are run by a bunch of old timers, not that its a bad thing, just seeing the same names over and over again. Yes we all know, CJ,MAC,AR,DYNACO,HEATH but funny enough if you go back far enough there are even older Significant audio companies/designs. Maybe I should just shut up and go to bed. Let the carpet bombing commence! :^)
jffyg
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,942 posts
 
Isn't the H/K Citation 2 on that list? I would not regard that as an old-timer's issue- that amplifier *is* pretty significant- it has wide bandwidth, low distortion and decent power (for the day), and if properly refurbished keeps up with modern amps with no trouble at all. Today they are commanding very decent prices, always a good indicator. If you look around you can find a lot of today's amplifiers that are a tip of the hat to that design.

History will be the judge on the current crop of class D and the like. I would not be surprised if those amplifiers will someday be seen as significant as well.
rok2id's avatar
rok2id
7,859 posts
 
they have no 'sound'
tmsorosk
1,013 posts
 
I'll have to agree with TAS on this one . Although the Pass amps were nice enough I wouldn't put them in my top ten list . Maybe top twenty .
As far as digital amps go I finally heard one that I liked ARC's DS450 .
tzh21y
1,654 posts
 
They did not say they were the best sounding amps of all time, they just said they were significant for one reason or another at the time.
trelja
3,224 posts
 
Jffyg, I'm glad you initiated this thread, because I was going to do so myself. Thank you!

It was nice to see they didn't mess up the number one position, the Dynaco ST70. Still, the most overlooked, underappreciated, looked down upon product in audio. The fact that people do backflips looking for the right amplifier, or complaining about the cost of high-end audio, and have never had one in their system amazes me.

The order of the rest of the lineup seemed off to me, but I guess getting people to agree on that would be impossible.

I didn't agree with ARC getting two places, the 600/610T AND the D150. And, maybe I would choose a different model. Likewise, another McIntosh instead of the MC275. Am I splitting hairs with the ARC and MAC?. But, in my opinion, they did get it right with the Krell KSA50/KSA100 and NAD 3020.

A few that I wondered about not being on the list were the Adcom 555, AtmaSphere M60, Caver M1.5t, Cary 300B, Futterman OTL, Jadis JA200, and the Quad II - all touchstone amplifiers in some regard. I feel one or two of them deserved to be on the list.
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