My Long List of Amplifiers and My Personal Review of Each!


So I have been in a long journey looking to find the best amplifiers for my martin logan montis. As you know, the match between an amplifier and speakers has to be a good "marriage" and needs to be blend exquisitely. Right now, I think I might have found the best sounding amplifier for martin logan. I have gone through approximately 34-36 amplifiers in the past 12 months. Some of these are:

Bryston ST, SST, SST2 series
NAD M25
PARASOUND HALO
PARASOUND CLASSIC
KRELL TAS
KRELL KAV 500
KRELL CHORUS
ROTEL RMB 1095
CLASSE CT 5300
CLASSE CA 2200
CLASSE CA 5200
MCINTOSH MC 205
CARY AUDIO CINEMA 7
OUTLAW AUDIO 755
LEXICON RX7
PASS LABS XA 30.8
BUTLER AUDIO 5150
ATI SIGNATURE SERIES 6005

With all that said, the amplifiers I mentioned above are the ones that in my opinion are worth mentioning. To make a long story short, there is NO 5 CHANNEL POWER AMP that sounds as good as a 3ch and 2ch amplifier combination. i have done both experiments and the truth is that YOU DO lose details and more channel separation,etc when you select a 5 channel power amplifier of any manufacturer.
My recollection of what each amp sounded like is as follows:

ATI SIGNATURE SERIES 6005 (great power and amazing soundstage. Very low noise floor, BUT this amplifiers NEEDS TO BE cranked up in order to fully enjoy it. If you like listening at low volume levels or somewhat moderate, you are wasting your time here. This amp won’t sound any different than many other brands out there at this volume. The bass is great, good highs although they are a bit bright for my taste)

NAD M25 (very smooth, powerful, but somewhat thin sounding as far as bass goes)
Bryston sst2(detailed, good soundstage, good power, but can be a little forward with certain speakers which could make them ear fatiguing at loud volumes)

Krell (fast sounding, nice bass attack, nice highs, but some detail does get lost with certain speakers)

rotel (good amp for the money, but too bright in my opinion)

cary audio (good sound overall, very musical, but it didn’t have enough oomph)

parasound halo (good detail, great bass, but it still holds back some background detail that i can hear in others)

lexicon (very laid back and smooth. huge power, but if you like more detail or crisper highs, this amp will disappoint you)

McIntosh mc205 (probably the worst multichannel amp given its price point. it was too thin sounding, had detail but lacked bass.

butler audio (good amplifier. very warm and smooth sweet sounding. i think for the money, this is a better amp than the parasound a51)

pass labs (very VERY musical with excellent bass control. You can listen to this for hours and hours without getting ear fatigue. however, it DOES NOT do well in home theater applications if all you have is a 2 channel set up for movies. The midrange gets somewhat "muddy" or very weak sounding that you find yourself trying to turn it up.

classe audio (best amplifier for multi channel applications. i simply COULDNT FIND a better multi channel amplifier PERIOD. IT has amazing smoothness, amazing power and good bass control although i would say krell has much better bass control)

Update: The reviews above were done in January 2015. Below is my newest update as of October 2016:



PS AUDIO BHK 300 MONOBLOCKS: Amazing amps. Tons of detail and really amazing midrange. the bass is amazing too, but the one thing i will say is that those of you with speakers efficiency of 87db and below you will not have all the "loudness" that you may want from time to time. These amps go into protection mode when using a speaker such as the Salon, but only at very loud levels. Maybe 97db and above. If you don’t listen to extreme crazy levels, these amps will please you in every way.

Plinius Odeon 7 channel amp: This is THE BEST multichannel amp i have ever owned. Far , but FAR SUPERIOR to any other multichannel amp i have owned. In my opinion it destroyed all of the multichannel amps i mentioned above and below. The Odeon is an amp that is in a different tier group and it is in a league of its own. Amazing bass, treble and it made my center channel sound more articulate than ever before. The voices where never scrambled with the action scenes. It just separated everything very nicely.

Theta Dreadnaught D: Good detailed amp. Looks very elegant, has a pleasant sound, but i found it a tad too bright for my taste. I thought it was also somewhat "thin" sounding lacking body to the music. could be that it is because it is class d?

Krell Duo 300: Good amp. Nice and detailed with enough power to handle most speakers out there. I found that it does have a very nice "3d" sound through my electrostatics. Nothing to fault here on this amp.
Mark Levinson 532H: Great 2 channel amp. Lots of detail, amazing midrange which is what Mark Levinson is known for. It sounds very holographic and will please those of you looking for more detail and a better midrange. As far as bass, it is there, but it is not going to give you the slam of a pass labs 350.5 or JC1s for example. It is great for those that appreciate classical music, instrumental, etc, but not those of you who love tons of deep bass.

 It is articulate sounding too
Krell 7200: Plenty of detail and enough power for most people. i found that my rear speakers contained more information after installed this amp. One thing that i hated is that you must use xlr cables with this amp or else you lose most of its sound performance when using RCA’s.

Krell 402e: Great amp. Very powerful and will handle any speaker you wish. Power is incredible and with great detail. That said, i didn’t get all the bass that most reviewers mentioned. I thought it was "ok" in regards to bass. It was there, but it didn’t slam me to my listening chair.

Bryston 4B3: Good amp with a complete sound. I think this amp is more laid back than the SST2 version. I think those of you who found the SST2 version of this amp a little too forward with your speakers will definitely benefit from this amp’s warmth. Bryston has gone towards the "warm" side in my opinion with their new SST3 series. As always, they are built like tanks. I wouldn’t call this amp tube-like, but rather closer to what the classe audio delta 2 series sound like which is on the warm side of things.

Parasound JC1s: Good powerful amps. Amazing low end punch (far superior bass than the 402e). This amp is the amp that i consider complete from top to bottom in regards to sound. Nothing is lacking other than perhaps a nicer chassis. Parasound needs to rework their external appearance when they introduce new amps. This amp would sell much more if it had a revised external appearance because the sound is a great bang for the money. It made my 800 Nautilus scream and slam. Again, amazing low end punch.

Simaudio W7: Good detailed amp. This amp reminds me a lot of the Mark Levinson 532h. Great detail and very articulate. I think this amp will go well with bookshelves that are ported in order to compensate for what it lacks when it comes to the bass. That doesn’t mean it has no bass, but when it is no Parasound JC1 either.
Pass labs 350.5: Wow, where do i begin? maybe my first time around with the xa30.8 wasn’t as special as it was with this monster 350.5. It is just SPECTACULAR sounding with my electrostatics. The bass was THE BEST BASS i have ever heard from ANY amp period. The only amp that comes close would be the jC1s. It made me check my settings to make sure the bass was not boosted and kept making my jaw drop each time i heard it. It totally destroyed the krell 402e in every regard. The krell sounded too "flat" when compared to this amp. This amp had amazing mirange with great detail up top. In my opinion, this amp is the best bang for the money. i loved this amp so much that i ended up buying the amp that follows below.

Pass labs 250.8: What can i say here. This is THE BEST STEREO AMP i have ever heard. This amp destroys all the amps i have listed above today to include the pass labs 350.5. It is a refined 350.5 amp. It has more 3d sound which is something the 350.5 lacked. It has a level of detail that i really have never experienced before and the bass was amazing as well. I really thought it was the most complete power amplifier i have ever heard HANDS DOWN. To me, this is a benchmark of an amplifier. This is the amp that others should be judged by. NOTHING is lacking and right now it is the #1 amplifier that i have ever owned.

My current amps are Mcintosh MC601s: i decided to give these 601s a try and they don’t disappoint. They have great detail, HUGE soundstage, MASSIVE power and great midrange/highs. The bass is great, but it is no pass labs 250.8 or 350.5. As far as looks, these are the best looking amps i have ever owned. No contest there. i gotta be honest with you all, i never bought mcintosh monos before because i wasn’t really "wowed" by the mc452, but it could have been also because at that time i was using a processor as a preamp which i no longer do. Today, i own the Mcintosh C1100 2 chassis tube preamp which sounds unbelievable. All the amps i just described above have been amps that i auditioned with the C1100 as a preamp. The MC601s sound great without a doubt, but i will say that if you are looking for THE BEST sound for the money, these would not be it. However, Mcintosh remains UNMATCHED when it comes to looks and also resale value. Every other amp above depreciates much faster than Mcintosh.

That said, my future purchase (when i can find a steal of a deal) will be the Pass labs 350.8. I am tempted to make a preliminary statement which is that i feel this amp could be THE BEST stereo amp under 30k dollars. Again, i will be able to say more and confirm once i own it. I hope this update can help you all in your buying decisions!


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Showing 12 responses by folkfreak

Actually @whitecamaross needs to create a system first

click on the “Create System” link here

https://systems.audiogon.com
@fsmithjack -- Verdier are certainly very nice tables but they are far from easy to set up if you are not experienced in the black art of TT setup -- especially with the stand alone motor and thread arrangement. As you can tell from the photos they need a good amount of room and the simple act of setting up/tying the thread and getting it to run correctly will take some work - will the seller set this up for you?

Also if that is the specific table you are considering the Wand+ arm installed on it, while an excellent value for the cost, is not up to the quality of the table and you will no doubt be looking for something different soon (I owned this arm in the past and liked it, but like the Verdier it is itself a bit tweaky and will take some experience to get all it is capable of)

Finally you should be aware that there have been fake Verdier's (http://www.jcverdier.com/ADSL/platineV.html) -- no reason to believe that the photos show such (in fact from the photos it all seems kosher) but you should get provenance and all paperwork. The next article in the link above is I believe a review of exactly the table you are considering so well worth a close read
@fsmithjack
The combination of the Schick 12 on the Verdier would be a classic, especially with a copacetic cartridge such as a Miyajima however this will sound absolutely nothing like your digital setup.

Do you already own several thousand LPs or have an interest in material that is only available on vinyl? Do you also have the real estate for a table like the Verdier, it demands a decent isolation stand, and of course you’ll need a correspondingly strong phono stage (think $5k and up say)? The road to vinyl nirvana is long and difficult 😏

I guess what I’m saying is that I’m at a loss to understand why you are going down this route instead of continuing to invest in the digital path you already prefer. If you check my system you can see that I have a pretty decent vinyl and corresponding digital setup and while I prefer the sound of the former I’d be more than happy with my DCS system if I didn’t own a thousand LPs and have an interest in mono classical and first pressing Islands.

please feel free to DM me to continue this conversation as I’m not sure the “amp of the day” crowd really want us messing up their thread
Where do you set the volume on your Ref10?  Unity gain is around 60, if you are above that then you are tapping into the 12dB of gain (balanced) provided. Frankly how quickly you get to the desired volume setting is irrelevant as it’s a function of the design of the volume control, what you want to avoid is running the pre in the top 25% of its volume control range (ie above 8o or so of the 110 step range)

You do of course also know that you can adjust the input sensitivity of the Ref 10 so you will get to your desired volume output at a different part of the volume control (the input gain offset function)
@viber6 euphonic = pleasing to the ear

in audio criticism the term euphonic is generally applied to components that impart a pleasant and attractive coloration - think tube preamps for example

What you describe sounds like the complete opposite of euphonic 😉

now personally i find ARC tube amps to be very euphonic, giving a pleasing and attractive sound but ultimately adding coloration that once you become aware of it is very annoying ... but that’s just my opinion
Re building a sound room. While it can be done cheaply the types of techniques proposed by companies like ASC and used by Robert Harley in the room he described in the Absolute Sound are incredibly labor intensive. This translates to big $ if you’re paying someone else, or a lot of work for you if you DIY (like Harley did).

My room is ASC iso wall based and I had to use a firm versed in passive home green building techniques because no one else would touch it, needless to say it cost a lot more than $20k.

Anyway the AS article you were pointed to is a good read and very on point on what to expect.
Actually the dCS also allows for “a change to the flavor of the sound” by changing the filters and/or the Ring DAC mapping algorithm. Please do experiment with these before drawing a definitive conclusion.  Also an upgraded power cord, and ideally better footers, will also pay major dividends. My system description contains a pretty extensive discussion of how to tune a dCS system.
@whitecamaross   For my room I built double super heavy weight doors each isolated via the ASC door seal kit and sound still leaks out of the room. The only real solution is another room and another set of doors (by which I mean having another full room with closed doors between your sound room and the rest of the house) sorry.
Re dCS Vivaldi -- as the owner of a (now 5 box with a 10Mhz clock) Vivaldi stack I would never give up on a CD transport source - I personally don't do any streaming but the real strength to me of a Vivaldi stack is what it pulls out of CDs. There's a magic in the good old CD that a well tuned dCS stack can create that for me (with a multi thousand disc CD collection) is something I'd never want to give up.

So yes the Vivaldi DAC is good of course but if you're buying into the dCS eco system then do so in the expectation that you're getting in whole hog --- and also be prepared to lay out almost the same $$ again in supporting interconnects and footers (see my system description for discussion on this topic)
How much time will you spend to optimise filter selection on each DAC? I’d suspect changing a filter will be more dramatic than changing between DACs. And of course without optimized power cords, footers and interconnects you are hearing a fraction of what either DAC can offer. Such is the folly of “shoot outs” - it takes many months of living with a component to gets its true measure.
For those interested in how and why a preamp may best the dCS Vivaldi direct (which is certainly my experience) I refer you to this thread

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/running-dcs-vivladi-direct

and now on to the real comparison ...