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Mono Blocks on a Budget, is it possible?

I’m really struggling with the direction to take my system. I have the following:

Legacy Classics speakers
Aurender N100H media player
Schiit Freya tube pre-amp
Schiit Yggdrasil DAC
Schiit Vidar x2 (in mono block mode)

I will be replacing speakers at some point but the rest of the system I love... except the Vidars. Before them, I had NAD 356BEE that was used for the amp. Very clean and I loved it, except it was only 80 Watts. I decided to upgrade to the Vidars. They cost twice as much From a good manufacturer like Schiit so they must be better right? Not really. They are more noisy than the NAD amp and I’m finding myself less in love with them that I though I would be. I was planning the Vidar purchase for about a year and now that I got them I don’t know which direction to take in replacing them. I want to get cleaner mono amps but don’t want to spend more than $3k MAX for both. The Vidars are 400 Watts into 8ohm, are there any options out there for me that are close to the Vidar specs? I’m open to used but mostly I want the amps to sound almost completely clean with practically no distortion. 
xerotrace
bubba12's avatar
bubba12
429 posts
 
Odyssey is a great option.  I believe them to be a great product for reasonable pricing.
tcatch
34 posts
 
Two good things about buying the Stellar monoblocks from PS Audio

1. They will knock up to 900 dollars off the ($3K) price if you trade in a used component.  They will credit you with the original MSRP, even if that's not what you paid for the item and is substantially more than what you could sell it for.  This can make for a substantial discount (plus no selling hassle).

2.  You have 30 days to listen to the amps and decide if you want to keep them or send them back.

I haven't had mine long enough to make a firm judgment (just a few days), but so far they are sounding pretty damn great. 
gammajo's avatar
gammajo
843 posts
 
Getting two Nuprime STA 9's for 649 new each might fit the bill and they have audition period. I have Nuforce/Nuprime Ref 20 and had the Ref 9V3se mention in previous post, both are terrific, as well as Bob Smith's mods
erik_squires
15,657 posts
 
One aspect of monoblocks not mentioned: Channel separation. 

In truth, not sure how much this matters. Some great sounding stereo amplifiers score rather poorly (-67 dB or more). 

But this is an advantage. The theoretically near perfect isolation of signals from one channel to any other. 

Best,

E
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