Digital Amps - Your opinions and why so few?

I will put in my usual plug for CarverPro ZR1600...about $800. Put the extra kilobucks into better speakers, and audiophile discs.

No matter how many reviews you read you will not really know how an amp would sound with your speakers, room, and source. The real virtue of the CarverPro ZR1600 (which by the way has no connection to Bob Carver) is that the cost is so low that most anyone can afford to buy one and give it a real try. Few can afford to take a flyer on a 6-grand item.

Telescope_trade... I, also, haven't heard the Hyperions. As Gmood1 says, the ZR1600 input is balanced (remember this is a Prosound amp) but it works fine single ended using the Radio Shack phono/rca adapter. With regard to preamps, the ZR1600 input sensitivity is adjustable.
Choices range from 0.316 to 2.45 vrms for full output (600 watts into 4 ohms) so it would be easy to match up with source electronics if you want to use a passive preamp. The ZR1600 also has volume controls, separate for both channels, which can be bypassed if you think they degrade the sound.

The only drawback is that the amp does use a fan, which makes some noise. The best solution (the one I use) is to hide the amp away in the cellar or a closet. There is also a simple mod to change the fan to a very quiet model, and, for home audio use, it's been reported that the amp does not overheat with the fan disconnected.

It is solidly built (for rough Prosound use) and has a 5 year warranty.

Rooze...I understand that you are operating the amps bridged (1600 watts!). You should realize that each channel is operating into 2 ohms, and while the amp is built to withstand this environment, I think that fidelity is somewhat degraded relative to what it will do into 4 or 8 ohms. I suggest that you experiment with using only one stereo amp for the pair of speakers, and compare with bridged results.

In the long run, I think that you might do better to use the amps in a biamp configuration using an electronic crossover. That is what I do. One channel drives a subwoofer system, and the other the associated MG1.6.

I am not a great believer in breakin, and never performed the kind of listening (the same recording over and over again) needed to detect an effect. If they improve with use, hey...that's great. My cables are also nothing special. The sunwoofers and the woofer of the (2-way) MG1.6 are wired with generic #12 wire, with no terminations on either end. Bare wire, clampred into the binding post, which IMHO is the best way to do it unless you need to disconnect and reconnect the speakers frequently. The MG1.6 high end is biwired with deliberately small #24 wire. This gives me a 1 ohm resistance in the wire so that I don't need to use any tweeter padding resistor in the crossover. The MG 1.6 crossover is, by the way, modified with a large aircore inductor and fancy capacitors.

Of course the modification shops claim that this amp can be significantly improved, for a price. Since you have two, and really only need one, why not send one off for a mod, and see what difference it really makes. If you do go to biamp, you could use the modified amp for the high end, and stick with the stock amp for the lows.