2. speakers
  3. 125087-8622

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?
marktomaras

Showing 1 response by stewart0722

stewart0722
184 posts
 
There are substantial differences in the sound of the various
iterations of Bryston amps and you should try to get the SST2
series if you can......
even if you got a 3b, you’d have 250w into 4ohms which
would better the ARC and you should be able to get that around 2K
used.....the 4b doubles those numbers and there’s one on gon for 2900, that you should be able to get for 2500.........so you shouldn’t have to go back 3 models in series iterations to get in your price range......you should be able to get 500w plus into 4ohms and stay where you need to be with a later edition of the bryston’s with the Torus transformers etc......I ran 7bsst2’s with my very current hungry Magnepans and I now have the 28bsst2’s with those same speakers........It’s not about power.....it’s about headroom and overall control. Are your speakers controlling your amp or vice versa ?
More to discover