Amplifiers:A Keeper for Life. Do you know of one ?


Just wondering, with this audio merry-go-round of buying and selling, if anyone has an amp that will be a keeper for life. I haven't yet but came verrrry close once...
sonicbeauty
Hey Gaslover,

I have a 'Grandson' in my basement that I hear is the (not power wise of course) 'killer' of them all. The elderly gentlemen that I got it from (lost his hearing) said that it was beautifully 'voiced'. I have had it now for years and have never even listened to it. Having a hard time switching off my Citation.

Well, I am a Citation fan, and the 16A does it for me. Very tube like quality and the bass goes downstairs like thunder at your doorstep. After hearing it, I sold my 9 McIntosh amps. (I do miss them sometimes..)

Then again, I always liked the Krell KSA 50, and the Levinson ML2's... What to do?
You will LOVE the Grandson. Sounds best pushed hard (can handle 1 ohm!). I owned a Godzilla at one time... took it to the 1984 CES to a/b it against John Iverson's Eagle 7a. The Eagle won, hands down. Fantastic amp. Godzilla's designer has never been the same since!
Gaslover... I just might look up the little guy and see how it compares to my Citation.

You say and Eagle 7 sounded better than the Godzilla? My memory might be off, but wasn't Godzilla a pure class A design? Enormous power output, something like 200 wpc into 8 ohms, class A power. Should be able to heat a small home with it.

I never heard one, but remember well all the fanfare when it came out. I don't believe many were built. I will let you know how the Grandson sounds.
There were 23 Godzillas produced. Some were class A, some class A/B. I had S/N 19, which was the A/B version. 350 wpc into 8 Ohms and 1000 wpc into 2 Ohms! These were dual-mono, 1 chassis amps, and each channel was bridged; slew rate of 600 volts/microsecond. The beast drew 9 amps just idling... no signal present (Very high bias). The Eagle was a class A amp and that might have been the difference.
Good luck with the Grandson. You will be pleasantly surprised.
Gaslover, Wanted you to know, that Grandson is an extremely musical little amp. It almost has a tubey (I know it's not a word) sound to it, but with extra heft in the lower end. Nice wide, deep sound stage. Been listening to it for nearly a week. Very sweet indeed.

I am surprised there isn't more on the web about these amps. Makes me wonder what AmpZilla sounded like?

Best,

Norman