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Speakers and amplifiers show audiophiles are confused.

An audiophile buys a pair of speakers for $50K or $100K then asks what amps make them sound best. That’s about as smart as marrying a girl without knowing her personality. What are the specs that will insure your expensive new speakers and amps will work optimality with each other? There’s got to be an app for that, well no there isn’t because there are too many variables and companies don’t present their specs in a standard ways. Why is it that speaker and amplifier manufactures don’t recommend specific amps for their speakers? Beyond power, impedance, and making your own crossovers how do you choose amplifiers to get all the potential out of your speakers?

128x128donavabdear
donavabdear's avatar
donavabdear OP
473 posts
 

Other than the Title speakers with the Bryson amps for $8k I'd say the JBL L100's were the best for the money. 

kota1
2,706 posts
 

Its nice to have auditioned the Sonus Faber, did you check out the McIntosh gear/amp you were thinking about? 

 

donavabdear's avatar
donavabdear OP
473 posts
 

@kota1 Yes there were some beautiful MC901 amps being shown off with beautiful equipment and B and W 801 speakers in a big room, it was horrible. The B and W 801s were so harsh compared to everything else it was off the charts, you really get a very strong sense of what to expect when listening to a first class systems one after the other this one was an abomination, I'm sure it was because of the speakers not the amps, the low end and midrange of the 801s sounded great the high frequency was a dentist drill. I think the amp did a great job in creating punch with the SS circuitry and then transitioning to the mid and HF. In another room the hybrid McIntosh amps did very well with the small new Golden Ear speakers they sounded great and really filled the room in a surprising way, I've never listened to Golden Ear speakers before but it was clear these speakers came from a lot of trickle down technology, the Macintosh amps did very well.

The best amps at the show to me were very clear, huge class A, I'm sure there were some great new class D amps (that are the future) but it is a big risk for a manufacture to use an unproven amp in such an important event. 

 

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