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 "

So be careful with amplifiers based on switching power supplies. To the best of my knowledge - all except Jeff Rowlan 312 amp has peak voltage of about 50 volts.

One of the reason why you found delightful tube amplfiier sounding "thin" is that your speakers are extremely power hungry only 2nd to Shahinian Diapason in that respect. If you can get "ideal" amplifier and measure voltage at this amp outputs during orchestral creschenso - you will get not less then 150 - 200 volts peak voltage.

If you want class D amplifiers which can drive PROPERLY your speakers then you have to look Jeff Rowland - 312, Mark levinson - No53 and Spectron Musician III

If you like good tube sound then it must be Spectron amp. 1 - In monoblock mode it has peak voltage of 240 volts.
2 - One of the Spectron designer, Simon Thacher owned Diapason and voiced this amp specisfically for power hungry Shahinians.

Best Luck

Rafael

"How can classical music sound natural at a heavy volume ? "

The answer to this interesting question lies in the attendance of classical music concerts parrtucularly orchestral, choral and operatic ones. You will be surpised to find out that SPL at your ear varies from zero to about 115 dB (if you happenn to conduct the orchestra during this attendance as well).

This variation is not in the form of the since wave (as most of amplifier manufacturers try to convience us with many useless specs) but according to the capricious imagination of a composer and even more capricious interpretation of a conductor.

"Yes, but recorded music is compressed - tailored for average audio system "

Keith Howard (Hi-Fi News Sept 2007) made actual measurments or peak power and peak SPL obtained using B&W805, Music Fidelity power amp and classical music recordings.

His measured peak SPL was about 110 dB (and corresponsing peak power was 3500 watts)

On other hand - most of today recorded music is compressed. This is one of the reason why I like Golden Age recordings...seem to be much less compressed.

Hello Eldartford:
What amplifiers do you use in your system?
I am very curious.
Thanks
Rafael

A few commented that peak creshendo takes only small fraction of time of the recording (and I agree with it) and therefore is not worth investing in truthful reproduction of these peaks (and I disagree STRONGLY with it).

Simon Thacher of Spectron who is both (retired)EE and (former) concert pianist wrote enire paper on this subject in Enjoy The Music last year:
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/manufacture/0708/index.html

For lazy, he explained there what kind of distortions occur at the peaks and conclude with:

"The exploration of the origin of "listener fatigue" is extremely interesting, at least, for this writer. We believe that when our subconscious mind detects a even small unnatural trace of distortion in reproduced acoustic music (which is not recognized yet as a very low level irritant by the analytical part of our brain) it activates a subtle alarm. This forces the listener into the tense or alert mode. Indirectly supporting this hypothesis is the common description we hear from Spectron users who utilize the two powerful monoblock amplifiers (7 kW peak power, each): "how relaxing" is my listening now."

So, unless you in flute music or country music or pop and wish to avoid listener fatigue - you better pay more attention to peaks - equally or more as you pay attention to other attrubutes of your equipment.

Personally, the combination of Joule-Electra "most romantic as per Harry Pearson" LA-300ME preamp, Spectron monoblocks and B&W 802D is THE best I own and auditioned then any system at any cost. PERIOD!!!!

All The Best
Rafael

Guido,
If you want uncompressed and excellent performance of Dvorak 9th - then get Esoteric SACD with Kertesz conducting Vienna Philarmonic. Phenomenal recording and ....performance!

Weseixas: "How about these ICE amp" - you can ask Mapman who uses his ICE based Bel Canto to experience sharp peaks "even at lower levels". I can only imagine the SPL pressure when he playes at medium levels !

Hello Muralman1,

What model of Henry Ho amplifiers you use to drive your 1 Ohm speakers?

It would be SHOCK to me if this is the amplifier with switching power supplies...

Thank you,
Rafael

Hello Muralman1,

What model of Henry Ho amplifiers you use to drive your 1 Ohm speakers?

Caps provide store energy only. Incidently, intial Spectron Musician III also has two or four huge caps. In next geberation they changed it to 100 smaller caps (10-12 times reducing ESR) and difference in sound was more then drramatic.

Ar any rate, I am interested if your amp has switching power supplies or it was based on traditional transformers. Also, switching power supplies are not digital. First Spectron class D amplifier in 1974 also was based on switching power supplies but they do notn use it in their audiophile products.

I visited Mr. Ho web site and he has there two type of power supplies driving the ICE output stage:

#1 M500 - Power Supply: Integrated Switching Mode; $3,000.00 USD a pair

#2 M250 - Power Supply: Integrated Switching Mode; $2.500.00 USD a pair

#3 S250 - Power Supply: Traditional Toroidal Transformer; $3,200.00 USD ea.

#4 M250SA - Power Supply: Traditional Toroidal Transformer;$6,000.00 USD a pair.

#5 S100 - Power Supply: Traditional Toroidal Transformer; $6,000.00 USD ea.

Thank you,

Simon
I would bet a treasure that it was the pair of MA250SA...