How good is the Aragon 8008mk.2 amp?

I own the 4004MKII & a pair of the Paladium monoblocs.
I've had them all modded locally here in Phoenix, by a highly respected, retired Honeywell employee. They've all had the most basic mods - soft recovery diodes & bypass caps. They sound very good (IMO). They definitely are excellent for bass control, I prefer MOSFET amps in the midrange, on some speakers....
I'm going to guess the 8008MKII is a hard sell, since you can still get a pair of the closeout monoblocs for only $800.00 more......

Yes I would say a great amp in that price range is the mccormack Dna225. The 500 is 2 under 1 case.

My experience is based on the 4004MkII, which I owned for a couple of years. In my system, I can easily hear differences in the amps I have owned. The 4004MKII was a bargin as discussed by others above. You could tell it was a sort of mid-fi SS amp (a little grain, fast but a little flat in the midrange) but its strength was that it sounded musical and did nothing really wrong. I upgraded to a Classe DR 25, which I thought was smoother, and displayed better dynamic range, and it can't touch my current McCormack DNA 500 for purity, power, midrange texture, HF decay, etc., but I would certainly like to own one again for my second system. IMO it kicks Adcom, Acurus, Rotel and others in its range. BTW, they are a great stepping stone since they are built very well and still sell used for the same price I paid 4-5 years ago.

Guess my experience is just different - I think that amp is every but the equal of the others mentioned. I'm not a believer that all amps sound the same, but I also don't think they sound as different as many would have you believe. Just found a post on the old usenet group that I was thinking of...take it however you like.

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.audio.opinion/browse_thread/thread/e7d7b36322972842/39af202ebc13f5a8?q=8008bb+33h&rnum=1&hl=en#39af202ebc13f5a8

Well i had the 4004II it was great for the money. Ive Owned Krell ksa 300S Ksa250 Mda300 (cruddy) IMHO VTL Hurricanes Zeus Cary And many others. I sold everything, and unloaded A Large $$ of money on a 1000lb pair of monitors, Until i can put down some serious cash im getting a 4004II Or 8008.

The Aragon amp is very good. It begins to approach the quality of better amps, but it will never be on par with the Krell or Levinson gear, unless it is being compared to integrated amps or HT gear.

I owned the 8008 for several years, and was very happy with it. I built a system around it, but when I replaced it, I bought a Krell FPB 200.

On paper these are very similar amps, both rated at 200 wpc into an 8 ohm load... the specs go on very similar, but the Aragon could not touch the Krell for impact and dynamics, or reserve power. The sound of the Krell was from top to bottom better than the Aragon.

That doesn't mean that the Aragon is a poor quality amp. It is not. It is very good, but know going into the deal that while it is good it has limitations that the comparable Krell or Levinson will not.

Aragon is relatively inexpensive, and a great bang for the buck unit, but not state-of-the-art.

Extremely good. It can handle any load and it does it almost as good as Krell. I haven't compare all amps in this category, but Aragon in general is a bargain.

I had the 8008BB, same circuitry. That amp was on par with almost any other SS, high powered amp including Krell and Levinson. The ONLY thing that you could hold against it is that it wasn't a true differential balanced design. I'm considering looking for another one soon.