Wilsons are pretty efficient and you have a fair amount of power. I agree with those who suggest that you may need more gain in your phono or line level preamps. I have heard many Wilsons from Sophia to Alexandria XLF, and they always sounded great with tubes, esp. ARC and VTL.
An Amplifier Change for my Wilson Sophia 2's?
I have an Audio Research VT100 Mk II with 100 watts of tube power driving my newly acquired Wilson Sophia 2 speakers. The sound is lovely, and the specs seem to be fine, but I do have to crank the preamp pretty high to get relatively loud music, especially when playing analog. It got me to thinking that maybe these speakers would be better served by a lot more power.
If I were to make a move here, I would be looking for a price neutral move. That means selling (or trading) my amp for its market value (about $2300) and purchasing something at the same price.
My initial research pointed to Bryston power amps, either an older one from the family of 4B Setreo amps or 7B mono blocks. Either would deliver more than 500 watts into 4 ohms.
Would this much power make a large difference in the performance of the Wilsons?
If I were to make a move here, I would be looking for a price neutral move. That means selling (or trading) my amp for its market value (about $2300) and purchasing something at the same price.
My initial research pointed to Bryston power amps, either an older one from the family of 4B Setreo amps or 7B mono blocks. Either would deliver more than 500 watts into 4 ohms.
Would this much power make a large difference in the performance of the Wilsons?