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i have been in some of the forums and have heard the pros and cons of quite a few amps currently made. i personally own a cj 2300a and 2500a with pv 10 and pv 12s preamps. i have alon 4's speakers and use tara labs vectors 1 between the amp/pre and audioquest black mamba eveywhere else. my question, just what is the best solid state amp out there. i have been leaning toward the mccormack dna500 and the pass labs x350.5. (something in the 250/350 range) i also like the cj mj350, plinius, bryston, mark levinson, jeff rowland, bat, bells, vtl, sim audio, havland, joule, cary, jolida and audio research to name a few. please give me your pro and cons for as many of these amps as possible. i thank you all in advance..............
Follow Ups:
There are so many variables that it's impossible to say one amp is the best, one can only say which worked best for him or her. I have top tear Audio Research and Ayre gear but after much auditioning at home of both tubes and solid state it was a Levinson #532 power amp that brought it all together. I'm sure Levinson amps won't work for everyone but after listening for a while the decision for me was clear.
From the Manufacturer & Marketing: Always the next
They're affordable, so you can afford to have one amp per driver combined with active crossover/eq = no more performance-robbing passive crossovers!
Sorry, but present day amps, when operating within their design limits, sound pretty much the same.Ever notice that NOT ONE amplifier manufacturer has ever run an ad claiming that a group of "blinded" audiophiles preferred their amplifier to a competitors? What a compelling ad this would be! ..Yet none has done this; I wonder why (well, not really).
Edits: 05/23/12
Our audio club just had a blind test to see if they could tell the difference between a tube amp and a ss amp. The tube amp was a VTL ST-85 and the ss amp was an Odyssey Khartego. Of 11 people 8 correctly picked the correct choice. There was no attempt to ask if one was better than the other because I don't believe that is the purpose of blind testing. Anyhow this does show that the amps sounded different enough to identify one from the other
Alan
I'm sure in a double blind test you wouldn't hear any difference.
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I said that amps sound alike, I didn't say there aren't other reasons for preferring one over another.
I purchased my McIntosh amp because of it's build quality, I love it's glass faceplate and lighting, I like the fact that the meters give me some idea as to how much wattage I'm sending to the speakers (yes, I know they're not perfectly accurate, but they're accurate enough to be helpful), I like the fact that it has tone controls, a balance control, and mono switch, etc..
So saying that amps sound alike isn't the same as saying there's no reason to be selective.
Playing incapable music into incapable speakers from incapable source makes all amps sound the same , thats why we need big blue meters and a joint ;0)
a more common, and reasonable, perspective: and develop the understanding that substantially different topologies cannot possibly sound the same: unless your downstream components are really incapable.
"In this land right now, some are insane and they're in charge. To hell with poverty, we'll get drunk on cheap wine."
More experience? ..I have excellent measured hearing and a keen sense for musical nuance honed from a lifelong obsession with live and recorded music. ..Perhaps the problem is when people obsess on things like "different topologies" it sets up expectation bias.
with a wider variety of systems, - with more experiences, - you'll come to understand like many of others who have more experience, that amplification varies greatly in sound....
Listening can be fun, - really.
"In this land right now, some are insane and they're in charge. To hell with poverty, we'll get drunk on cheap wine."
right?
....who preffered their amp to a competitor??? I'll just say all amps sound the same and save my eyesight!!
.
Short’s the best position they is. Bullet in the Brain
That's the most encouraging thing I've read this month on AA!
It means there's actually been some progress...
There wasn't a lot of differences even 25 years ago, but actually more than I expected. I'm glad that things are getting better still.
Rick
....but I sure as hell know about the best speakers ever made!!!!!
nt
unless someone in Upstate New York get then first ... in which case I can just listen from my balcony up here in Ontario Canada.
Short’s the best position they is. Bullet in the Brain
The funny thing about 'personal experience' is that its personal to the person experiencing the event in that time frame, and would be totally unrelated to how you may respond to the same event.
You really need to audition the products that hold your interest, and decide for yourself...personal impressions cannot be transferred from one person to another, humans are not built that way, androids are.
...on which speakers you are matching it to.
And what your listening biases are - every one sounds diffrent since none is totally accurate in reproducing the sound of live music.
But you could come up with a list of maybe the top 5 or 10.
love all music except gospel and country. do like some of the older stuff like patsy kline, elvis and johnny cash though. i have alon 4's, and rotel 975 cd player.
Aspen Amps by Hugh Dean. Simple Killer Amp by Greg Ball. Aussie Amps by Anthony Holton.
The 1970's Hiwatts...
.
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Recently, my Son apparently grew out of his Fender version of the EVH 5150. The warrantee was almost up and it wasn't very reliable but lots of fun. After months of shopping he settled on a Fender Twin Reverb 65 reissue for $650 on Craig's List.
Coincidentally, I bought a used Twin in 1966 for $75 to use as a preamp for my large DIY Electric Bass rig. Sold it in 69 with the advent of my acoustic 360 which freed up the Marantz 8B's from the DIY rig to begin my first component stereo and the start of my audio nervosa.
Had the crystal ball not been out of order I would have kept the Twin, 8B's, and the 360. It seems I have good taste but no sense...
from 59 after running Mesa Boogie amps for years. The differences were outstanding. Mesa, although amazing just doesn't sound like that, it does more sounds, and it can do so many things: but the "Fender" sound, - as it sounded, - is noticeably not that sound....
"In this land right now, some are insane and they're in charge. To hell with poverty, we'll get drunk on cheap wine."
Your Bassman have solid-state of tube rectification? I think a lot of the tone is that OPT they used in the old days. I've put NOS ones into Pros and Bandmasters with blown trannies. And the tone is quite a bit different than the stock units. Stouter and brighter.They're all pretty good. Except for that crazy AC568 circuit with the hybrid cathode/fixed bias arrangement. Luckily it's easily fixed-back to the AA165 circuit.
Cool stuff. BTW... the Hiwatt was fully restored.
Here's a link to a monumental thread about the journey of a AB165.
Edits: 05/24/12 05/24/12
Mine
Hello,
With respect.....
I know that I'm not the only one that believes that system synergy is more important than getting a "good," "great," or whatever individual component.
So, the first questions that people will ask you is, what kind of room do you have, what kind of music do you listen to, what "other" (if any) components do you already have?
Some people think that Conrad Johnson amps are great, others think that they are not. Some have integrated them effectively into a system that they like a lot, - others may still be struggling and making adjustments. Some people end up taking years to build a system that works for them.
IMO, it's good to enjoy the journey, seeking not good or great individual components, but components that work well together.
"In this land right now, some are insane and they're in charge. To hell with poverty, we'll get drunk on cheap wine."
i like all types of music, from the classic to funk and rock and roll. i came up in the sixties from harlem ny and have a pretty good handle on music. i have a medium size room, and please explain to me what is synergy i keep hearing about. i posted what compontent i have.
i like all types of music, from the classic to funk and rock and roll. i came up in the sixties from harlem ny and have a pretty good handle on music. i have a medium size room, and please explain to me what is synergy i keep hearing about.
A lack of synergy is like putting bicycle tires on a Ferrari. You have a great car but the tires ruin everything. Even though they may be the world's best bicycle tires which get rave reviews in all the tire press. It's not a good synergistic match.
In audio you can put a bunch of great pieces of gear together and not get very good results. Or not as good as maybe lesser components that work together better.
Synergy is the interaction of all of the parts of the home audio reproduction chain to produce a result greater than the sum of their parts.
Wrong , synergy is a cover up or masking of faults by one compononent by faults of another component . It's a truly false concept and applies only to lo- fi systems. What people usualy mean by synergy is regular technical requirement of given component, i.e SET amp is pretty useless on less than 100dB speakers, 1000W hog amp on small stand mounted monitors is a wrong idea and a sign that the owner is an ".ERTYFXYGV" etc. etc. The amps sound very different but the progress was not that big to ask $$$$$ for new models.It's simply general inflation creeping in.
thats great, give me some personal references and experience with some of the amps ive named. some of the strong suit of the different amps if possible. this one vs that one so i can make a decision. i talk with conrad johnson and mccormack and resently with pass labs to try to ge a feel for what i think is the next step up in my stereo evolution.
There is no "best amp". PERIOD.
I've owned several amps over the years. Once you reach a certain level, "Best" is just a matter of personal preference and slight differences in sonics between the amps.
Same for just about every piece of gear in this hobby.
"I've owned several amps over the years."
Now, that's a silly answer :)
nt
.
The amp that gets the highest sound quality rating in HFN & RR is the very expensive Devialet Premier £12K integrated only with items of no interest to me.. I have not heard it but any amp at that costs the price of a car is absolutely of no interest to me, especially as it is mainly Class D albeit with a small high quality Class A similar to the old Quad current dumping arrangement that required considerable modification for better sound. However the latest Quad QSP amplifier is excellent.
Edits: 05/22/12 05/22/12 05/22/12 05/24/12
What do YOU think?
Just from the list of amps....I suggest you like the different amps for different reasons, none is necessarily the 'best'.
How an amp will perform depends in no small part on the load it is asked to drive.
Too much is never enough
Mike at Audiofederation made up a list sorting the big solid state amplifiers out into how each did in micro/midi/macro dynamics.
Kind of fun idea.
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