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| Model: | Son of Ampzilla 2000 |
| Category: | Amplifier (SS) |
| Suggested Retail Price: | $ 3375 |
| Description: | Stereo Power Amplifier |
| Manufacturer URL: | Ampzilla 2000 |
| Review by realitycheck (A) on August 27, 2006 at 11:07:15 IP Address: 71.220.53.61 | Add Your Review for the Son of Ampzilla 2000 |
Spread Spectrum Technology Inc.100 w/c @ 8 ohms - 200 w/c @4 ohms - 400 w/c @ 2 ohms
2000 watt PS
Noise (-135 dB)
Four Quadrant Symmetry Topology
98 percent are sold outside the U.S.A.
$3375
After listening to my new Son of Ampzilla 2000 for the last three weeks I am very impressed! The sound is state of art. If I was to compare it to classic designs I have heard, it sounds like a mix of the Audio Research D150 and Levinson ML-2, with the noise floor removed! Rich clear tone and “you are there” imaging! Real note decay and dead silent background!
Two recent Lp’s I bought sound unbelievable. (Cisco re-issues of “Misty” and “Midnight Sugar” - Three Blind Mice). I have enjoyed every Lp I have thrown at this amp. Every musical genre is satisfying!
Choosing good Hi-End equipment the last 20 years, in a store, is impossible. The last time I heard good setups in any store was in the 1980’s. Dealers used to hear “Why does my new component sound worse in my home, than it does in the store?” (from slops who buy expensive stuff and don’t have a clue on home audio setup). Now the dealers setups are bad on purpose! Analog phono playback in stores is also gone.
My reference on sound has been what I hear through STAX Lambda Nova Signature headphones, with the FET/Tube driver, using low noise RCA 6FQ7 clear tops from the 1960’s.
Tube amps are dead because the Russians never made any tube with classic tone. All their tubes have military origins, and are designed for the sole purpose of keeping MIGs flying through atomic clouds!
With typical modern “audiophile” equipment, one third of my record collection sounds great, and two thirds sucks!
I am finally enjoying my entire music collection again like I did in the 1980’s.
Thanks you James Bongiorno for bringing me back!
My Current System:
Benz Ruby 2
JMW-10 Arm
VPI Phono cable
VPI TNT Series III turntable
VPI SDS
PASS Xono with ugly black PS (1K ohm load)
PASS X1 with ugly black PS
Cheap Pro balanced (Canare/Nutrek) interconnects
Son of Ampzilla 2000
Cardas quadlink speaker cable
Magnepan 3.6 speakers
| Product Weakness: | Will not peal wallpaper off your walls! If you want that get the Ampzilla 2000! |
| Product Strengths: | All you could want! |
| Associated Equipment for this Review: | |
| Amplifier: | Son of Ampzilla 2000 |
| Preamplifier (or None if Integrated): | PASS Xono and X1 |
| Sources (CDP/Turntable): | VPI TNT |
| Speakers: | Magenapan 3.6R |
| Cables/Interconnects: | VPI, Pro XLR, Cardas |
| Music Used (Genre/Selections): | Everything |
| Room Size (LxWxH): | 28 ft x 16 ft x 9 ft |
| Room Comments/Treatments: | draps and fake plant |
| Time Period/Length of Audition: | two weeks |
| Other (Power Conditioner etc.): | Stax headphones |
| Type of Audition/Review: | Product Owner |
| Your System (if other than home audition): | see above |
Follow Ups:
I have owned many of Jim's designs, the favorite being an old Sumo Andromeda, with the good transformers, before the new owners at Sumo ruined a great design.
I also had a Sumo 9 with Charlie the tuner, and matching preamp.
I ran that system for over a year with Harbeths, a long time for me!IMHO, Jim Bongiorno forgot more about amp design then many will ever know, and is one of the true geniuses of audio.
Thank you for the review, and I can see that you are one happy camper.
Enjoy!
Chris
Greetings Realitycheck;Thanks for the review;
Nice setup equipment wise, to help assist you in your evaluation. Its also pleasing to see that there's still excellent values out there at pretty fair price-points for those willing to put they're time in, it sounds like you've found a keeper. Your choice of gear is very revealing and it sounds like things are matching up very well for you, nice job. I understand your enthusiasm, turn some LPS!
I must also agree with you on the lack of proper equipment setup from some dealers, some not all, and I agree even a novice can tell when systems are not setup properly. Lets face it when its bad -- its BAD! The dealers Ive purchased from use tape measures setting up speaker distances from walls, change equipment in/out gladly, and most importantly listen to my concerns and listening tastes. While it sounds simple enough Ive found its a disappointing experience in many places, yet those that take the time I reward them with my business. Although I'm done purchasing now for awhile, very rarely do I purchase second hand.
Hows the amplifier handling those Maggies primarily that ribbon tweeter, from your comments it sounds very pleasing. The 100 watts would seem a little gun-shy but judging from your enthusiasm all things are good! Exciting times , thanks for sharing your thoughts.
ENJOY...
Regards /// Tim W....
Thanks for your comments. I always wondered how these sound. Similar to you, we ran Rogers LS3/5a 15 ohm with LSB-1 bass extender with Thoebe, Son of Amp and Hafler DH 200, fed by Ariston RD 11 with Grace 707 Shure V15VMR. (my father's place).I have 2 old Son of Ampzillas still, and the Thoebe needs to have the controls and female phonos cleaned. That's it.
Remember, Bongiorno's amps in the late 70's drove Tympanis easily. That's even the Sons.
I do not claim the Son of Ampzilla 2000 is perfect!I do not know what it sounds like with ANY other combination of equipment nor do I care!
I have never heard the Ampzilla 2000 and do not believe it sounds exactly the same as the SON.
This amp does not cost $15,000.
The "Four Quadrant Symmetry" topology has only been succesfully done by James!
Almost no other power amp has a -135 dB noise level!
This is a "rare" amp that few have heard, and there are only a few opinions, on totally different systems.
I have owned no other speakers than the 6 ft Maggies since 1977, nor do I care to own any other brand. I do not feel the 20.1s are coherent across the audio band, and the image is Too Big!
I never used XLR connectors before, heard or used the PASS pre-amps before, or tried any phono loading other than 1k ohm. I have not changed anything since first put the PASS amps and Son in my system.
My first real good system, that I used from 1977 to 1985 had MG IIa speakers, GAS thoebe, original Son of Amzilla, and Sleeping beauty MC cartridges. I am partial to those components. Every Lp I owned sounded at least good. I got many complements on that sound, and NOBODY complained!
The cost of most all "so called" very good components today is ABSURDLY HIGH!
I have owned this amp for only 3 weeks. This is a first cut!
Very few components over the last 30 years have given have given me a thrill! I have heard many, many systems that "claimed" to be good, that I thought were terrible.
Everybody has their own opinons on sound and a different experience! The only purpose of audio is to get your own "best" experience.
Communicating your experience is always hard, and opens you up to much disagreement.
My system sounds better now "OVERALL" than I have ever heard!
If you do not think I know what "Good - Real" sound is, I do not Give A Damn!
I have used a pair of SofA (as monoblocks, one amp per channel) since they came out in 2004. The Son remains my favorite SS amp. The 200W monoblocks offer more power but not quite the transparency. YMMV.
I listened to a bunch of them driving the huge VMPS RM/X's last year...they did sound very good in that system.Thanks for the review....enjoy!
Dave
There are much better, more transparent and with more correct tonal balance than the Son of Ampzilla 2000. I heard it and its bigger brother the ampzilla 2000 at my friend's on his Apogee Divas, which is not that difficult to drive as long as the speaker is 3 ohm stable. We compared it to an AcousticPlan Santor (zero feedback hybrid), Sphinx Project 14 MKIII (another zero feedback hybrid), the Sphinx Project 18 (all SS but low feedback), and the Pathos Classic one hybrid integrated. Out of all these amps we preferred the Ampzillas, father and son, the least. Much less transparent and overly warm in a classic tube sense (even more so than all three hybrids). They simply lack world class resolution. Certainly better than typical transistor midfi but not true high end contenders, IMO.The best sounding amps were the Sphinx hybrid and the AcousticPlan hybrid. The Project 18 had the most slam but lacked a bit of refinement. Even the little inexpensive Pathos sounded more interesting.
Now I like Bongiorno's ideas (I used to own a Sumo The Nine and it was better in my mind as well) so I tell you I was mightily disappointed with the results of his efforts. Of course the Apogee Diva leaves nowhere for an amp to hide and is one of the highest resolution speakers ever made. Differences in gear are so obvious its startling so maybe what we heard there with the Divas is not as clearcut on other systems.
nt
I think they do a great job other than TAS, HIFI plus and Soundstage! You keep expressing meaningless and nonsense comments. So give us a break!
....can't you do better?
Oz
nt
Nice review, but tube amps are not dead. They sound better today than ever. In my opinion tube amps beat the best solid state amps in sound.
I used to think in this way like yours. Now, all I can say depends on which speaker you hooking up the SS amp to. Some speaker really not design for tube amplifier, eg. Epos, Royd, Shahinian, Mark Levinson's Cello speakers, Maggies and Quad ESL 63/988. These speakers look for either high damping factor or high current; maybe be both. Tube amp will fail to deliver what those loudspeakers look for.My Infinity MTS Prelude loves tube amplifier, but my Shahinian Diapason Ensemble perform way..........better with SS amp. My Royd RR3 and Acoustic Energy AE1 absolutely not a big fans of tube amplification, especially, the AE1 needs high current and high damping that tube amplifier could not deliver. And my Ensemble Primadonna loves both type of amplifiers, I tried my Marantz 9, Quicksilver 8417, Pilot SA260, Bedini 25/25, Metaxas Soliloquy with great result. However, not all speakers will be happy to live with tube amplifiers, another example is one of my reference speaker which is a ribbon hybrid --- the Clements RT-7, it needs high current for the transmission line bass, but my Celestion 7000 absolutely loves tube even this is a ribbon hybrid.
I heard most people claimed that the Quad 63 is not as good as 57. I still has a pair of 57 which has been modified by One Thing Audio in UK. I can say they both sound different, the 57 is very beautiful sounding but the 63 is very accurate "if set up properly". The 63 doesn't sound "best" with "tubes", tubes could not drives the 63 to perform at optimal level. What the 63 needs is a high power and very controllable solid state amplifier, no kidding! I think now you understand, even speakers from the same mfg, one loves tubes, but the other not.
Also, "some" premium solid state amplifier can head to head compete with tube amp, but not many. I have both type of amplifiers, and I'm not going to bias to either type of amplification.
Have Fun!!
PPT
The difference is that you need a good tube amp with lots of power. The big VTL tube amps will drive anything just like the best solid state. Even hard to drive Magneplanars. I never heard a speaker yet not being able to be driven with this amp. Shoreline 800 watt mono blocks are also the ticket. To me these beat any solidstate amp in terms of sound quality including the Halcros.
I might agree to you, VTL may work well with Maggies. But Shoreline???? I listened to that several time on different occasions. Sorry! Not my cup of tea!!
Where have you heard Shoreline. It is a very small company and not many people know anything about it. It is from California. Are you sure you are talking about the same company.
You're talking about Shoreline from Rainbow Electronics, right:-)I listened to that several times back in 90s'.
Your Infinity Prelude MTS was not designed for tube amplifier.
It was designed by Floyd Toole, and they used Proceed amps and preamps to voice speaker, and also used Harman Kardon AVR 7000 receiver!
This I know ...
Infinity is part of Harman International, also owns Harman Kardon and Proceed.
So, they use amps in 'family'Not to say they won't sound good with tubes, but they were not intentionally designed to do so ...
It might design by Proceed or ML gears. However, it still sounds great with tube amplifiers. And tube gears sounds better than SS on the MTS Prelude. hat's what I meant:-)
What tube currently made has the classic tone of the 1960's? NONE!There are almost no classic NOS tubes left!
You are in denial of the facts! The Magnepan tympanies were born on ARC tube amps!
Magnapans are the only speakeres made with a constant impedance over frequency, and as a result create a linear loadline with any amplifier, resulting in a linear sound output! They work well with any good tube or SS amp that can drive a 4 ohm load well.
This is supposed post at tube asylum.Mr. realitycheck you wrote:
> > What tube currently made has the classic tone of the 1960's? NONE!
There are almost no classic NOS tubes left! < <I have the following tubes to do the comparison.
1) NOS GEC KT88
2) Gold Lion KT77 (2 Pieces only, but in pretty good shape that I bought back in early 90s' when Internet still not widespread)- I bought some Chinese made GEKT88 solid plate and done a side by side comparison to the NOS GEC KT88 I have on hand. their tone are very close. However, I could not guarantee the reliability of the Chinese tube, but so far I've been using some Chinese tubes for last several years and they sounds great and very reliable!
- JJ just release a replica KT77, and their first production comes with small pins and I think some audioasylum members aware that from tube asylum. I guess JJ received lots of complain about this issue, and they have improved the tubes since this May.
I bought few Quad set. Since I only have 2 pairs of NOS KT77 on hand, so Pilot SA-260 and Dynaco ST-70 will be the choice of comparison and with the following speakers which suit for medium power:
1) Ensemble Primadonna
2) Infinity MTS Prelude
3) Alon Lotus Signature
4) JVC SX-WD5I can say, the JJ KT77 perform very close for what the NOS does at very reasonable cost!
My personal experience is that modern tube just getting better, some tube even better than "some" NOS tube regard frequency extension and linearity! I truly respect to Sovtek even though they are not my cup of tea 13 years ago. Their 12AX7LPS truly my favourite in my Quicksilver 8417 mono-block! Since I didn't receive my EH 6922 order yet, so I borrowed some some EH 6922 from a local guy and put into my SP-11 MKII and Sonic Frontiers Line 3 SE+, they are the best tubes I ever tried in both preamplifier. As one of my friend says this latest Russian 6922 is better than the Siemens CCA in my SP11 MKII in terms of noise level and microphonic issue. When replacing the Siemens CCA with this new Russian 6922, the noise level dropped dramatically but without sacrificing the musicality.
Now I'm going to order more EH 6922!
Some modern tube maker is trying a great effort to produce good sounding and high performance tube. See, Ei has made KT90 to work with most gears with excellent result. IMHO, NOS tube is not for everyone, same as the modern made tube.
Finally, I also think the Ampzilla 2000 is a very good sounding amplifier, I have considered to buy a pair at a pretty good deal last April. However, I have too many tube and solid state amplifiers at home, and no more space for this amplifier, and I discovered that some tube amp I hardly turn it on for last 2 years. So it will be a waste if buying an amplifier and put on the shelf for collecting dust. You're very Lucky to have this amplifier in your system:-)
Yes, this is true. Just as the modern tube amp comparing to vintage gears. That's why I can tell why some people still loves the LS3/5A.I don't aware that Magnepan still making tympanies in 2006! However, you might give both MG 3.6 and MG 20.1 a try by putting the tube amp on it. See how it works up against the SS amp:-)
Magnepan used the ARC VTM200 tube monobloks to voice the MG-20.1!Did you wipe yourself with maple leaves today?
You begin with:Tube amps are dead because the Russians never made any tube with classic tone. All their tubes have military origins, and are designed for the sole purpose of keeping MIGs flying through atomic clouds!
While the second claim is true when you narrow the field to 6C33s and 6H30s, that is most certainly not the case with 6922s, the entire 12A(?)7 family, EL-34s, or 6550s to name a few.
Then you contradict yourself with this fact:
Magnepan used the ARC VTM200 tube monobloks(sic) to voice the MG-20.1!
Using 6550s and 6H30s. I have heard 20.1s driven quite nicely with Joule Electra Rite-of-Passage amps. I'll go with Jim Winey's judgement as to whether or not tubes are "dead".
Don't get me wrong - I remember when the Ampzilla first came out. Bongiorno makes good stuff.
rw
The Russian 6922, entire 12A(?)7 family, EL-34s, or 6550s are "pale" in comparison to the classic eastern European tubes of the 1960's used in amplifiers "designed around the classics", from the classic era. Modern tube amps are "tweeked" to sound best with modern "copies" of classic tubes that are available, and can be sourced in quantity. Try getting Exact matched NOS power tubes or low noise NOS tubes for any ARC amps or pre-amp made since 1982. These amps "only" sound best with "almost" unatainable classic NOS tubes!How many Chinese Or Russian tubes were ever used in amps by the Beatles, Jimmy Hendrix, or Eric Clapton? They made tubes them back then, but they were no damn good!.
Winey knows his Speakers sound "best" with ARC tubes amps and thats why they are "voiced" with those. He also knows almost nobody uses ARC amps on Magnepan speakers today because todays Magnepan user does not understand the "classic" original sound of Maggies (ARC Tympani) with ARC pure tube amps!
The Russian 6922, entire 12A(?)7 family, EL-34s, or 6550s are "pale" in comparison to the classic eastern European tubes of the 1960's...But they were not developed for the military as you stated.
How many Chinese Or Russian tubes were ever used in amps by the Beatles, Jimmy Hendrix, or Eric Clapton?
I really couldn't care less as to what tubes were used in guitar amps where the deliberate use of distortion was part of their sound.He also knows almost nobody uses ARC amps on Magnepan speakers today because todays Magnepan user does not understand the "classic" original sound of Maggies (ARC Tympani) with ARC pure tube amps!
According to whom? So let me see if I understand what you are saying. Winey, knowing that "nobody uses ARC amps" any more decides to voice his statement product with something that no one uses. Did I get that right? I'm sure the numerous folks here on the Asylum who run both today would differ with that viewpoint.
To each his own. Tubes were declared dead thirty years ago. :)
rw
> > Did you wipe yourself with maple leaves today? < <What about yours?
Hey my friend, I try to be a gentleman and I wish you're. I have nothing against you. If you like the ARC driving the Maggie so much, how come you bought the Ampzilla 2000? And not investing an ARC whatever model tube amps mating with your Maggies.
You already given me the answer, SS (Ampzilla) works better than tube on Maggie. That's the end of it!!
I recently compared $6000 worth of solid state to my Rogue Metis and Stereo 90. The ss gear was great, but compared to the Rogue? 'Lifeless'.-M
PS: FEMALE SINGERS SMILE, BLOW KISSES, and WINK!
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