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Accuphase class A amps - going up the food chain from an A-48 to an A-80 or A-300?

Earlier this year I acquired Accuphase separates (C-2450 pre-amp, A-48 amp) and have been very happy with them.  

We have a decent resale market in Canada for Accuphase products, and I was able to snag a C-2900 pre-amp at a good price this past weekend.   We see mostly integrated amps on the resale market here, and current production separates are much harder to find.

The C-2900 sounds noticeably better than the C-2450, and it got me thinking about moving up from the "entry level" A-48 to either the mid-level A-80 or even the top of the line A-300 monoblocks (though size and expense are almost prohibitive).

Does anyone have any experience or advice about moving up from the A-48 to the A-80 or A-300 monoblocks?

BTW Accuphase pricing in Canada is significantly better than in the US - so much so that Canadian Accuphase dealers are not allowed to post prices online for fear of alerting US customers to how unfair pricing is in the US - and Canadian dealers are not allowed to ship to US customers. 

toronto416
toronto416 OP
230 posts
 

US pricing did go down last year, but it is still NOT on par with Canada.

For example take the A-80:

US list 26,575

Canadian list 27,999

So if those numbers look on par you have to consider that they are in two different currencies that are NOT on par as 1 CAN $ = 0.72 US $.

So CAN $ 27,999 = US $ 20,251

The A-80 costs US $ 6,324 more in the US than in Canada. That is still a big discrepancy!

Equivalent Accuphase and Luxman products are similarly priced in Canada and they compete with each other, but not in the US. Accuphase could benefit from following Luxman’s example in the US market.

ckr1969
89 posts
 

chk your PM @toronto416 

lloydc's avatar
lloydc
751 posts
 

@Toronto416, thanks for the heads-up!

jfrmusic
278 posts
 

@toronto416 

 

I own an Accuphase P4600 Power Amp and can strongly recommend this component. Plenty of power and runs cool. Beautifully made. Beautiful sound. 

miguelderivero
3 posts
 

I also own an Accuphase P-4600, their entry level power amp and I can say this amplifier produce a beautiful sound. Part solid state and part tubes. Lots of detail. Comparing with my McIntosh MC1502 and MC611, this P-4600 is as good if not better than my Mcintosh. Unfortunately I still don't have experience going higher on the chain but probably I will move to all Accuphase. 

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