Integrated Amp to match with Magico A3

According to hifiplus - Alon Wolf himself recommends the Hegel H360 (source: http://www.hifiplus.com/articles/exclusive-first-listen-magico-a3/). I don’t think you will get a better recommendation than one from the founder of the Magico. That being said.. for what it’s worth I demoed the A3s with that amp and ended up ordering both. There are plenty of reviews of the H360 out there if you’re interested. My review would be summed up with two words: "effortless power".

Cheers!

Sinewaveron,

Thank you for you’re reply and asking me what I think. In the spirit in which your gracious post was written, here are my thoughts per your request:

I think your aggressive response to a first time poster trying to be helpful and answer an open call for opinions uncalled for and suspicious.

I think that for someone who likes to talk about distortion - it is really bizarre for you to then recommend pairing a 25k amp with 9.8k speakers. I say this because speakers produce by far more distortion (like hundreds of times more) than all other components combined in a modern audio system and most people who know this allocate their budgets differently.

I think you have spent so much time evangelizing your amp (for whatever reason) that you’ve completely lost sight of the big picture.

I think this is a hobby and I’ll never understand why people like you try to take the fun out of it for everyone else.

Hope this is what you were looking for and thanks for reading.

@audiotroy

I agree that what I heard could be described as clean and without mid-range bloom. In other words, to me at least, it sounded accurate. Perhaps Mr. Wolf recommends this combination because he (as the voicing of his speakers indicates) prefers clean sound as well - I must admit I’m having a hard time seeing that as a bad thing, but since I haven’t even brought the speakers home yet I will reserve judgement.

I also wanted to point out that I think "... that is not in debate and your $25k Vitus should squash a $5k Hegel" is quite a clever thing to say. Careful use of the word "should" instead of "would" here has given you an out on what would otherwise be a very silly statement. I say that would be silly because it would then imply that price is a reliable indicator of performance in luxury goods which is laughable (even when being made by someone with obvious vested interests in doing so). Well played sir. Well played.

For anyone reading this that might think price=performance, please see http://nurburgringlaptimes.com/lap-times-top-100/ for some extreme examples to the contrary.  Note some of the Chevy products on the list and their position such as the  Camaro ZL1.

@jhills - Thanks for the kind words. I’m glad to see there are others here who want to share the joy. Speaking of joy... I got a surprise call from my dealer on Thursday morning and they had my A3s ready for pick-up! I’ve been breaking them in with the Hegel H360 for the last few days and so far it’s been amazing. From the first track I played I went from thinking I was nuts for spending so much money to wondering why I hadn’t done this years ago. My wife and I spent last evening drinking cocktails and listening to Laura Marling. It was amazing - and probably the second best thing you can do with a beautiful, tipsy women in the dark :-)

I’ve never heard the Octave before. In fact I’ve never even seen one before it was mentioned it so I looked it up. That is one damn sexy looking amplifier! I would love something like that someday but it is way out of my budget at the moment. Frankly the Hegel was already pushing it. Fortunately I found a really great deal on one so I stretched only a bit for it. That’s one thing I’ll say for the Hegel; you can find a dealer fairly easily and if you are patient can likely snap an open-box (or even a new one) with warranty for a very attractive discount.

Here are some downsides you might want to be aware of with the Hegel H360 based on my short experience:

1. If you care about MQA it doesn’t have it (I do not care about this).

2. It doesn’t have built in apps (also not an issue for me because of my setup).

3. I guess the model is likely to be replaced in the next year or so after they roll out the 590 (I’m not worried about this now but we’ll see how I feel then).

4. I really like the look of the Hegel but it’s simple design probably isn’t for everyone. To put it another way, It’s pretty but it won’t get you insta-laid by anyone around you like the Octave will (this could be a good or bad thing depending on who is around you and how open-minded you are).

5. Lastly the remote is not at all to my liking and I will replace it with something back-lit with larger buttons or even a cheap tablet.

So far I’m really enjoying the combination of the H360 and the A3s. Then again, I’m so blown away by female vocals on the Magicos that I just sit there dumbfounded with my mouth agape and drool running down my chin every time I take a listen. So you should probably consider my opinion still in the "honeymoon phase" :-) Time will tell.

Thanks melbguyone!  I'm having a lot of fun rediscovering my old music collection and a whole lot of new stuff on Tidal.  I've already pushed in to my 40's but I'll take what I can get :-) 

I was wondering about break-in so I appreciate the input there as well. Magico apparently  won't comment on the matter for whatever reason.  Hell, then don't even include a manual or setup instructions.