Amp and pre for Aerial 10ts

Steve, I believe I mentioned this before. I would recommend you purchase a used McCormack DNA-2 for about $1800 and send it to McCormack at smcaudio.com for a Rev A or Rev A Gold upgrade for $2500.

Phenominal speed and bass and much more. With this 10T, Rev A combo, I'd highly recommend you then demo a pair of Audience Au24 speaker cables.

-IMO

10 T's need more power to sing ! vtl mb 450

McCormack DNA-2 amp, Sunfire signature amp 600 x 2 amp, Mcintosh Mc352 Power Amplifier

These are all good recommendations. Alernative: I just heard the NEW Threshold lines on the Aerials and was mighty impressed. Amp was 100 wpc pure class a . Delicate and an incredible sense of depth. Sounded good on the new Aerial20T also.

Thanks for those suggestions. For the money do you think i would be better off buying the macormick amp having it redone I would have about 4700 in it or would i better off buying a VTL 450 mono block for these speakers Please reply thanks

I have Aerial 10Ts coupled with Sim Audio's W5 power amp and their P5 pre. Love the sound but it requires a lot of break in time for the electronics. I suspect that the W5 and P5 has a bit more power and resolution than your setup.

Mjdraper, I used to own a Moon W-5 with my 10T's. The W-5 is an excellent amp in it's own right and in some ways was a real eye opening demonstrating the vast differences in amplifiers in general.

However, it seemed to me that the W-5 simply could not muster enough power and control for the bass and mid-bass regions of the 10T. But I could not put my finger on it. I assumed that the 10T's just demanded more juice.

Aside from the bass, it was far superior sonically to my previous amp, a BAT VK-500. But the VK-500's bass was substantially more powerful and controlling than the W-5.

I sold the W-5 and moved on. The next two amps confirmed my speculation regarding the W-5 not having enough power and control for the 10T's bass regions.

Then about 6 months ago, I stumbled across a review on the W-5 and P-5 products on SimAdudio's web-site. The reviewer was Peter Moncrief of IAR and as he praised the W-5 and P-5 for their overall excellent sonic attributes, he described in detail the weakness and lack of controlling power with the bass regions of the W-5.

He speculated on what the possible causes were. But more importantly, he confirmed that even though the W-5 has many positive attributes, outstanding bass region reproduction is simply not among them.

-IMO

If you like the sound of the ARC VT-100 MKII but need more punch here is an option for you. Buy another used VT-100MKII and bi-amp. You can put one amp on the right side and one on the left. That way no single amp bears the burden of the bass. Your preamp must have two sets of outputs and the speakers must allow bi-wiring. I done this several times and it works very well. It also stops you for hurting yourself moving a 200 watt tube amp. Good Luck.