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ICE Amps for classical music?

I listen to classical orchestral music at heavy volume. I detest reproduced music for always sounding more or less electronic and not acoustic. Real music is beautiful in a way reproduced music--so far at least-- never is. I have become curious about Wyred4sound amps because of low price and high watts. I am wondering if any of you "mostly classical" listeners have heard these amps and feel they do no more damage to music than amps which are NOT ICE amps. I am using a Plinius SA100 now and have used a VAC 100/100,
a Bedini Classic 100/100, a Music Reference RM-9, and other tube and solid state amps. They all had their pluses and minuses, of course, but for least electronic, clearly the Bedini was the winner. So what about ICE amps?
rpfef

Showing 3 responses by curriemt11

curriemt11
220 posts
 
Interesting that you should mention the Wyred 4 Sound amps. With curiousity having gotten the better of me, I recently acquired a used pair of the 250 monoblocks (more like monobricks, actually) to try out on my SoundLabs. The little amps drove them suprisingly well in spite of the difficult load. They definitely sound more forward than my Ayre monos, with a touch of brightness that I found to be just a touch irritating after a while. The single largest difference compared with the Ayres is a very definite shortening of the soundstage (i.e. front to back).

Keep in mind that these comments are 1) comparing what is in my opinion one of the world's finest amps to something that retails for roughly 10% of their cost, and 2) they were driving an extremely difficult load.

On balance, I would say that anyone looking for a high power, high efficiency amp and is on a budget would be very well served in auditioning these.
curriemt11
220 posts
 
Rleff,

Only to a degree. If I turned the control down far enough to get rid of the brightness, it clearly depressed the upper mids to an unacceptable degree.

I've had quite a number of amps on these speakers, and none have exhibited this behavior to this extent. It may be a matter of semantics, but in my opinion it's the amp that needs 'taming', not the speakers.

I don't want to make too much of this. The problem area is where the load is dropping into the 2-4 ohm range. Speakers with a more reasonable impedance curve might well fare much better, so my experience in this regard must be taken with a very large grain of salt.
curriemt11
220 posts
 
Muralman,

What are you differing about? I referred specifically to the Wyred 4 Sound amps, I used several different interconnects and power cables of varying design and composition, and the fact is that on my SoundLabs, the amps were bright and the soundstage was collapsed. I can't make the fact that this was my experience - under the stated circumstances - any clearer.

I'm well aware of your gear and of your love for the H2O amps. Everybody who reads this forum is aware of it. Quite honestly, you are starting to sound a little defensive about the technology. Trust me, I have no ulterior motive here.

I have, in fact, asked about user experiences of the Gilmore and H2O amps on the SoundLab owners' forum. No replies yet. I think enough of the potential of the technology that if a pair of H2O Signature monos comes up for sale, I may well buy them. Meanwhile, I'll just enjoy the Ayres, OK?
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