SS Amp for natural vocals

Well, that recording has been a favorite of mine since the 1980s. I "get it" and it will set you back in you seat, even with my old Bryston or my current Conrad Johnson CA200. I'll pull it out this weekend as part of my initial testing of the Continuum in my system.

Another great recording is Atlanta Symphony doing Firebird on Telarc. The sudden peaks actually shock me (I jump in the chair), even though I expect them.

Dave

I heard the DALI Helicon 400Mk.2 a few days ago with the Jeff Rowland Design Group 501 monoblocks, driven by the Rowland Capri. This is a truly smooth and revealing combination. I listened to Karrin Allyson, Rebecca Pidgeon, Livingston Taylor, Kenny Rankin, Chicago Symphony, Dallas Wind Symphony and the DALIs really shone well.

Prior to plugging in the 501s were tried a Primare integrated, which did a very poor job of controlling the DALI's woofers, yielding a bloated, bloomy bass. Next, we put in a Rowland stereo 102 and things improved a bunch, but the 501 really took hold of the Helicons and made them sound smooth, deep, detailed and lush, all at once. Those speakers evidently love a bunch of power and high damping.

Dave

The DALI 400s benefit giantly from a great amp with lots of power and damping. I heard it with three amps and was blown away with the 400s driven by Rowland 501s. I think you'll experience night and day difference.

The first I heard the DALIs with was a nice mid-priced intergrated with just under 100 WPC, then I heard it with the Rowland 102 stereo amp and finally with the 501s. The little integrated had out of control bass, such that it was unacceptable to me. The 102 cleaned things up nicely, but the 501 really controlled and deepened the bass and cleaned the mids and really made the ribbon tweeters sing. It was a wonderful combination. The gain was NOT marginal.

Dave

Well Rafael, not exactly.

The Jeff Rowland Design Group Continuum 500 integrated amp is only $8800, with 1000 watts into 4 ohms. It handles the DALI's very nicely. (I literally just walked in the door from listening to the Continuum driving the DALI 400s and the Vienna Beethoven Baby Grands, for about the last 3-hours).

I should say that I'm having second thoughts about the DALIs. I was disturbed that the DALIs don't really handle low bass as well as the Vienna Acoustics, losing the harmonic richness in a Johnny one-bass-note kind of response below a certain frequency. Given the price and size I'd expect much better bass resolution.

The DALIs excell at highs. They're incredible with things like fingers on strings and air in voices. The mids are also very good, but I prefer the VAs, that's without regard to price. If you consider price, then the VAs are an overwhelming choice for me.

Dave

I do know that the DALIs are very amp sensitive. I've now heard them with four amps and they sounded very different with each one.

My friend, are you suggesting that the DALIs may drop below 1 ohm in the low frequencies? I'll ask Jeff Rowland of the stress limits of the Continuum. He suggests using it with speakers with a nominal impedance of 3 ohms or higher. I suspect that it'll handle loads down below 2 ohms easily, but I haven't seen any test data of that kind of stress.

Since I'm buying the Rowland, the DALIs will certainly not be on my shopping list.

Dave

Oh, Rafael, overnight I thought about your comment that RMS power ratings can be misleading and then you go on to quote some amp's ability to put out 3500 watts into .1 ohm for 500msec. Well, I'm thinking that instantaneous power is interesting to know, but at what purpose? .1 ohm is next to shorting. Do any actual speakers present such a load? What musical event is going to occur from 500 msec, right before your amp fries or shuts down?

I DO agree that RMS can't possibly tell the whole story; however, I think that it's a good starting point. Yes, you only use 1 to 5% of that power continually, but I hear a correlation between power and control of the woofers in large speaker systems. I think that RMS is a good place to start in understanding an amp's ability to handle large, inefficient speakers.

BTW, the Continuum's two built in Power Factor Correction modules each deliver 385V DC, so I don't think that's a limiting factor.

Dave