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In Reply to: RE: Impressions of class D amps from Gilmore and Merrill... posted by morricab on November 03, 2015 at 09:03:28
...they are going back - no interest in other speakers.
They were 2-D with flat images and some stage depth.
Reminded me of the highly touted BEL 1001 amps from the mid-1990s.
Follow Ups:
Interesting you mentioned the lack of 3d in the images even though there was some soundstage depth. I find this to be a bothersome effect that afflicts a lot of electronics. If the stage has depth then the images need to have some dimensionality as well to be convincing.
..."paper ships on a paper sea".
As you may know, I owned the Manley Neo-Classic 250 mono blocks before we moved to a smaller home. I can understand where you're coming from when comparing the Merrill Veritas and Gilmore Raptors to the Manleys.
If I were to summarize, I believe you found the Raptors to have a better bottom end making the Merrill Veritas sound comparatively 'thin'. You compared it to the ARC 'house sound'. I have found 3 ARC tube linestages, one ARC tube amp, and an ARC integrated to all sound a bit 'thin' so I wouldn't want to go in that direction with Class D.
[LS-16, LS-16mkII, LS-25mkII, VT-50, VSi-60]
That being said, I had the ICEpower W4S SX-500 monoblocks a few years back and thought they sounded pretty good but a little dry and lacking detail in the deep bass. I saw that you liked the bass from the Raptors.
The bass from the W4S SX-500 was deep and impactful but not as detailed as the Manleys. By detailed I mean being able to clearly hear the distinct differences and separation of notes in the deepest bass, from a large upright bass for example. The Manleys were far superior in this area compared to the W4S Class D amps, which surprised me.
The ICEpower W4S SX-500 were definitely an improvement over my Bel Canto M300 ICEpower amps. The M300's sounded nearly monotonic down in the deep bass. Again, the bass was deep and impactful but lacking definition. The W4S were an improvement in this region but still 'not quite right' for my taste after hearing what the Manley Neo-Classics were capable of.
...when the Manleys were reviewed in 2002, they were considered to have SOTA bass for a tubed amp - I don't disagree.
The Raptors had great bass depth, definition and impact (better than the Manleys, but also drier) but overall they didn't sound as refined or transparent as the Merrills.
Are you sorry you gave up the Thiel/Manley combo?
Refined and transparent are great attributes, but sounding a bit 'thin' bothers me. If they could meld the Raptor best attributes with the refined Veritas, that might be a Class D amp of interest to me!I still own my Thiel CS2.4 and plan to keep them. They're covered up in the basement.
I can't say that I regret selling the Manleys because my situation has changed. I'm in a smallish home office listening room for a while and my compact integrated and smaller Tannoy D500 speakers are a better fit.
I will say that the Manleys were probably the best sounding amps I ever owned..... And with less demanding speakers than the Thiels, I also loved the AES/Cary SixPac monoblocks. These had 6 EL34 per mono amp and ran 60wpc.
Edits: 11/04/15
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