Thiel 3.6, what will drive them best?

Alas my budget is lower than the lowest figure you mentioned.

The room is an "l" shape 13 feet wide, 22 feet long as
shown in the lower drawing. sp denotes speaker position
and the o's denote the open entry to the kitchen and the lp
represents the listening position. All the "." are used to reserve spacing as the Agon editor compresses text.
The ceiling is 8 feet.

......... 13..........
....*********
....* sp sp.....* 12
....*..............*
22*.....lp......*ooo*
....*......................* 10
....*......................*
....*************
.............22...........

A listening position pic of my current setup can be viewed
here: http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/MUG/messages/12/122417.html

Thank you,
Ron

What qualities made you prefer the M200's over the HCA2200?

Thank you,

Ron

After reading your posts I have an idea.

Would it be possible to get a sub $1000 amp and run it now,
and later buy an exact match and run them both bridged to mono? That way I can stick to my budget now yet down the road move up to a much more powerful setup.

How would that work? Is this possible?

Thank you all,
Ron

Thank you, the M200s are in the running. Heat is bad.

Ron

I have researched the list as best I can and provided used prices for your suggestions that are available on A'gon at the moment.

Items in parentheses are similar to items suggested and offered as alternatives

I hope I got them all but so far the list includes:

Acoustat 200

Acurus A250 $400

Amber series70

Aragon 8002 $425

Belles 150A Hotrod, OCM 200 or 500
(Belles 150 $525)
(500 OCM $745 rough shape)

B&K M200

Bryston 7B-ST $2700

Carver signature series

Classe DR-9
(Classe CA-100 $700)
(Classe 15 $700)
(Classe 201 $1100)

Coda 10 or 10.5

EVS100M and EVS100S

Hafler 500

Krell KST-100, 300CX or 400CX
(Krell KSA-50S $1000)

Mccormack dna1 (revision B) $1185

NY audiolab 300

Parasound HCA2200 mkI or mkII

Stratos Odyssey (khartago case $900)

Unfortunately, at least for the next 6 months or so, I will be forced into this range of the used market. After that time I will make a move to something better. Six months is too long to wait with a pair of Thiel 3.6's on the way.

The question is: "From your experience considering what is available (the priced ones) should I pick from the amps available or shoud I wait?". I am unsure how often these
amps show up on audiogon. I spend most of my time in the speaker area.

Thank you all for your help educating me,
Ron

That's a point I hadn't considered. Low impedance easily drives most amps into clipping, generating square waves who's harmonics filter up to the tweeter, blowing it.

This would generally lead me to believe that whatever amp I choose, it should have a stiff reserve cap in the power supply. This then leads me to believe that amps like the McCormak DNA-1, with 64000 microfarads of storage might be a bit weak. Perhaps the McCormak's have a soft clipping feature which would prevent this from happening. Am I on the right track here?

How about the Classe 15 or Classe 100? These both double their power into 4 ohms and the 100 model is right in my range.

Thank you
Ron

Thank you, you are right, silly levels do not apply. I have Klipsch's for that!

Ron

Well, I have found an amp that should last me for quite a while. I am picking up a B&K EX442 Sonata from fellow Audiogoner Sac. He's great to deal with.

The amp is rated at 200wpc at 8 ohms and 350wpc at 4 ohms. I am told and have read it has a "tubey" sound and will therefore help round the forward highs of the Thiel's.

It is the best compromise I could come up with at the moment. I realise it doesn't quite follow the power doubling rule from 8 to 4 ohm but I won't be pushing the Thiels that hard.

Thank you for all the advice,
Ron

Well, I'm moving on from a B&K EX442 Sonata to an Aragon 8008BB. This should be quite a jump considering that the Aragon is a double mono amp with 2 1.1KVA transformers and doubles power from 200w at 8 to 400w at 4ohms. I haven't seen a figure for 2 ohms but I'm sure it will knock the socks off the B&K.

Anybody have any experience with this amp speaker combo?
I think I'll ask this in another post,

Thank you,
Ron