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For classical music lovers best amp for large orchestral forces?

I recently upgraded my pre to an arc ref 6se. Currently using pas xa25. It's a very good amp but I'm noticing a fair amount of compression when playing large symphonic works. My speakers are Dalis and they are excellent as is the arc.

For smaller forces, chamber, piano and voices the system works beautifully. But if I'm looking for more transparency and a deeper sound stage for symphonies I find sometimes a boxy cramped sound. Looking to spend around 8k or less either tube or solid state. There have been discussions about the xa25 and what's better but they fill up immediately with tangents of philosophical and technical discussions of how one hears. I'm looking for as many possibilities of actual units that I can read about and possibly hear.

Thanks for your ideas.

roxy1927
soix
11,236 posts
 

All you guys recommending tube amps, do you know that the OP’s speakers have a stated NOMINAL impedance of only 5 Ohms?  I haven’t been able to find more detailed measurements, but given that I’d have to think the minimum impedance likely reaches well below 4 Ohms somewhere in the frequency range.  Could something like an ARC Ref75SE (an amp I lust after BTW) perform optimally or provide enough juice on demanding recordings played at higher volumes with this kind of load?  I don’t know the answer, but on the surface it does not seem like an optimal situation. 

drbond
484 posts
 

You probably need more power: try to increase your budget and increase the WPC.  200-400 WPC for starters

ditusa's avatar
ditusa
2,444 posts
 

@roxy1927,

I will also read up on bi-amping as that might be cheapest of all.

This just came to mind! See the article below by JBL about BI- AMPING.

FWIW: All amplifiers produce more distortion in lower impedances then higher impedances.

 

Mike

 

dynacohum
836 posts
 

I don’t believe in magic. A 25W/ch amp no matter how good, will not reproduce large orchestral crescendi through an 89 dB speaker convincingly.  If you have a superb tube preamp (you have!), you want a transparent amp with a large current capacity that can deliver into a 5 Ohm load. Dali designs their line to be benign loads… it’s a core tenet of their philosophy you can read in any of their white papers. If you are a he-man with a large budget, and no social conscience, get a Boulder, Soulution, or other similar over-engineered mammoth. If you prefer not to waste money or natural resources, get a Purifi Class D amp. NAD M23 is a starting point. 

eric5kim
44 posts
 

My Raven Silhouette is a tube amp and drove my difficult Raidho C3.0 with ease. 
I listen to a lot of large scale symphonies. I have tried 6 different amps and the Ravens won out. I also had ARC VT80SE and they were great with easier speakers like the Focals Electra 1038BEs, Tyler linbrook, usher mini dancer, but struggled with sopra 2 and Raidho  

NAD C298 was laughably bad. Tried it due to accolades everywhere. Can’t believe magazine reviews.  
 
I might be selling the Ravens to go with SET due to a high sensitivity speaker change. 
They never come up for sale because the actual owners hold on to them. 

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