One Amp To ‘Rule’ Them All....

brettmcee:
"And honestly, still being relatively new to serious audiophilia, ‘the dance’ seems more like a slow-motion mosh pit than any dance I’ve ever seen."
     
Hello brettmcee,

     I think I can speak for my fellow Audiogon members and state that you're more than welcome here and we're willing and able to help you with most issues or questions you might have.
  
    What's confounding me, and perhaps others, is the roundabout way you asked about good amps for your multiple Infinity Kappa speakers. 

Never mind how and why someone, who claims to be "new to serious audiophilia", owns three different models of Kappa audiophile type speakers.  And why it took you so long to communicate that you're aim is actually to find a good amp that can handle the difficult low impedance loads of your Kappas.
     I think I'm just accustomed to posters adopting a more straight-forward approach.
     But, in an effort to help you out, I suggest we just ignore all of the above and you just transition your thread question, from this point forward, to one that is clear, concise, can be communicated in 1-2 sentences and reflects exactly what assistance you're requesting.

Thank you,
   Tim 

 


  

@noble100 

My primary goal for beginning this post was: I wish to define for the whole audio community one or more common, competant, reliable, well executed, sonically comprehensive, reasonably affordable amplifiers that we can begin to use as ‘reference amplifiers’ to judge other amplifiers by. That’s it.

I am interested in hearing the Audiogon community’s continued thoughts.

@2psyop Thanks for understanding me.

Back in the day Capitol, Columbia, Verve, Blue Note, were all using McIntosh tube gear for playback and mix downs in the studios. Some of the remasters that are using lathes to cut new lacquers are using Mac amps with the set up. I’m not saying that McIntosh are the end all amps, but that a bulk of the music from the 50’s thru the 70’s used them in the process for mastering as well.   My 2 cents.

@efort 

thanks so much for your input. I would think a lot of 60’s and 70’s production used McIntosh...moving towards Yamaha in the 1980’s.

I think we need to consider amplifiers that were used in producing much of the music we like, and speakers. 

I have three sets of speakers, I have the infinity Kappas, Yamaha NS-10’s and JBL 4312a Control Monitors. I like using studio monitors to really hear what’s going on in my system.

brettmcee,

    Your Kappas are 6 ohm nominal but can drop between 1 and 2 ohms at 90Hz and are notoriously hard to drive.  You need a high current amp that at least doubles its power from 8 ohms to 4 ohms but one that can handle loads down to 1-2 ohms is preferable.  Only a limited number of amps are capable of this.
       I'd suggest bi-amping them.  If you prefer a single amp and want McIntosh, a used McIntosh MC2500 or MC2600 would likely work well with your Kappas.  But used high current amps such as Mark Levinson, Krell, Aragon and Adcom would also work.
     I can think of some better solutions but would like to first know your budget and whether you'd want new or used.  I'd still recommend bi-amping for best results.  Some single new high current amps will drive them but would be considerably more expensive unless you're willing to limit the playback volume.

Tim