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the best amps for bass, best for the rest?

hullo fellow beardies!

i'm building a system that requires two power amps, one for the main speakers and one for the subwoofers.

the speakers are the Nola Baby Grand Reference, combined with the two seven foot bass towers from the Nola Grand Reference, c/w their electronic crossovers.

so one power amp will drive the baby grands, while the other the sub towers (coming in below 40hz)

which would be your nominations for best amps for bass, and best amps for everything except bass?

the obvious choice is to use valve power amps for the babies, and solid state amps for the subs.
i lean towards monoblocks.

current leading contenders are a new vtl 7.5 pre with 450 monos for the babies and a used pair of krell750mcx monos for the bass.

another option is to mate a used boulder 2010 with the vtl 450's and krell 750's.

a rather more expensive option is the boulder 2010, a used boulder 2060 and then either a second 2060 or another amp to complement the boulders. the 2060 could either run babies or subs, do you guys have any opinions?
or the same model amp runs all frequencies (2 x 2060)
or alternatively something completely different...?

i will choose the power amps first then match with an appropriate pre-amp.

my room is 7m x 5.25m x 2.4m high, with a concrete floor. i prefer electronic dance music (drum and bass, hard / deep / banging house and trance), dubstep and reggae / dub.
i dj roots, rockers and dub, was part of an illegal sound system for a decade hosting regular parties and an annual festival, along with dub nights.
i reside in the uk (scotland) and have no neighbours to worry about
infinitelybaffled
jedinite24's avatar
jedinite24
1,503 posts
 
+1 to what Needfreestuff said above about getting Nola's input.

One local audiophile by me who had a big money system used Red Dragon M1000 monoblock amps to power the subs in his system. When I bought them and put them in my system I heard an immediate bump in bass vs the tube amp I had in place before. I say give a class D type amp a try for bass. Maybe an NCore based amp.
barrysandy
192 posts
 
I would have voted for Krell but picked the stereo EVO 2250e and saved the difference to spend on your main amps. That was until I saw your music preference.... If you go back to your roots -- lovely bagpipes, fiddles, and tin whistles, my original recommendation stands.
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
Infinitelybaffled hi, looks like you aren't short of a buck with these speakers you have, so here goes the best I can conjure up without throwing money away.
The ribbon tweeters they have, they claim to go to 100khz and should be exploited with a wide bandwith amp, for tube amps that only means OTL's, as transformer coupled tubes cannot do that kind of wide bandwith unless they have masses of feedback which then is a problem in itself.

For your Nola Baby Grand Reference I would go solid state and as much class A as I could, with a big backup power for transients of class A/B, and that would be a pair of Pass Labs XA200.8 200 Watt Class A Monoblocks.
https://passlabs.com/products/amplifiers/point-8/xa200.8

For your sub towers I would go for bigger power Pass Labs Class A/B X-350.8 monoblocks
https://passlabs.com/products/amplifiers/point-8/x350.8

You could go for some quality Class D amps for the bass, as they do bass well, but that's all in my opinion.

Cheers George
denon1
329 posts
 
Plinius SA reference. Terrific for bass as well as main if you buy in mono configurartion.
rcprince
3,059 posts
 
I would suggest you go with a tubed preamp as well as the amp for the Baby Grands. I own the Nola Micro References, and have heard the Baby Grands, both using VAC electronics. I have heard the Boulder equipment, and while it is extremely revealing I feel, at least in the preamp and the midrange and up, that it lacks that sense of live music that I only get from tubes. I think you should consider a VAC preamp and the either Phi or Statement amps for the Baby Grands as well as the VTLs. Carl did voice these speakers with tubes, and they really do come alive with them.

For the bass towers, the Boulder amps had the best bass definition and control I've heard, at least driving Dynaudio Temptations. I would say you can't go wrong with either Krell or Boulder (or a big Pass amp) on the bass, though I would not rule out VAC or VTL in that region either--you might lose just a bit of control and extension compared with the solid state amps, but you might get a bit better integration with the Baby Grands. Just my $.02.
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