Best Integrated amp for Wilson Audio Sasha

For build quality and sound quality, the best integrated I have seen in this thread is the darTZeel - it is absolutely best quality, and works extremely well with Wilsons.

Keithr: The darTZeel integrated is stable into 2 Ohm loads and outputs 450 watts into this impedance. The power supplies on it are very stiff, which should come as no surprise given its considerable cost (I think the integrated is now something like $25,000). The issue isn't whether the darTZeel will drive a speaker like the Sasha, which it will, easily, but whether a speaker like the Sasha, which is well-made and does some things very well, but is not state-of-the-art, should be paired with extreme cutting-edge electronics like darTZeel (there are a lot of people running Wilsons with darTZeel who are extremely happy, but they don't know what their integrated is fully capable of).

In fact, you would absolutely not want a "higher power" amp, whether it be a power amp or integrated amp, if you have reasonably efficient speakers, and certainly not on a 91+ db. efficient speaker like the Sasha, as the vast majority of such amps use a lot of global feedback to control the circuit, as well as numerous output devices (i.e., numerous transistors or power tubes) to achieve high power. Feedback imparts a muted, closed-in, two-dimensional sound, and the numerous output devices reduce transparency and just generally muck up the sound on high-resolution systems. In this regard, it is frequently said, with good reason, that the lowest powered amp in a line of amplifiers is the best sounding one - the simpler the circuit, the better.

The new Rowland 625, the Ayre amps, and the darTZeel amps use no global feedback and none has a rated output of more than 300 watts/channel into 8 Ohms. Most Pass amps do not use any global feedback, and a few models have only three gain stages. The darTZeel stereo amp uses only a single pair of transistors per channel.

If you have really inefficient speakers (84 db. or less), if your system is in a really big room, or if you listen primarily to disco at 120+ decibels, then there may be a compelling reason to buy a high-powered (400+ watts per channel) amp. If, however, you're running efficient speakers like Sashas and have a reasonably normal room, high wattage is not what you want.

Dear Keith:

The darTZeel integrated was subject to a full review by Stereophile - here is the link: http://www.stereophile.com/integratedamps/dartzeel_cth-8550_integrated_amplifier/index.html

The Sasha was also reviewed by Stereophile and subject to Atkinson's normal suite of measurements - its impedance characteristics are well known:http://www.stereophile.com/content/wilson-audio-sasha-wp-loudspeaker-measurements

In fact, all of the WattPuppies, and most other Wilsons, drop to or below 3 Ohms in the bass and feature moderately steep phase angles.

Dear Keith:

I would agree that darTZeel may have chosen to deliberately omit that review, as they surely know that the majority of audiophiles, even some relatively sophisticated ones that might be expected to gravitate toward an esoteric product like darTZeel, ultimately lack the sophistication to assess how measurements correlate to sound quality. Put another way, if the hi-fi industry learns what to measure, then everyone has a chance to make gear like darTZeel. Lastly, I don't want to diminish the contribution that Atkinson's measurements have made to the industry, but it bears mentioning that he ran Levinson amps and B&W speakers until very recently - in this regard, I wouldn't go to a Rolex guy for enlightenment about an A. Lange & Söhne.

"So who needs this?"

It was the author of the thread who asked about darTZeel - it was not an unsolicited recommendation.

PS - Lange is a German, not Swiss, watchmaker.