Amp for Sonus Faber Cremoma M

Good choice of amps. i have owned/lived with SF speakers for many years. you've a great one there, too. I have heard many good things about Emotiva but not heard it myself.

i am tempted to rank in personal choice: Pass, Mc, Krell mainly from the many, many people who've spoken about Pass & Mc and SF speakers. I have heard Krell Kav...nice but not sure it is up to the level of Pass 250.5. (And i quite like the big krells with SF Cremona).

sorry not very helpful but thought i'd post as i saw there were no posts yet. good luck. Nice choices.

good to know...i'll keep that in mind for future reference, Rudge. Local dealer does sell both.

PKelly1504

You can use tubes for your 2 front speakers and a 3-channel amp for your center and rears. When you listen to 2-channel stereo...just turn on the tube amp. The key you will need to focus on is the difference in setting up your 5.1 digital process to adjust for the different amps. I do not have 5.1 and have never set one up...but imagine a 5.1 processor today should provide you with flexibility to manage the output to each channel to adjust for the power/performance of the 2 different amps.

howver, what it will NOT do...is adjust for the fact you may find the tube amp provides a different sound from your center and rears...which might cause an imbalance...or perhaps you will not notice...you have to try it to hear for yourself. Personally, if liked tubes for my 2-channel, i would stick with that and run SS 3-channel for side/rear.

Hope that helps. good luck.

Hi PKelly,

I used to run SF Guarneri with CJ MV60, then SF STrad with MV60...which eventually was upgraded to Gryphon Antileon.

I have listened quite a lot to SF Ellipsa, Cremona, Grand Piano and the earlier generation. In all cases, i found they already had such a beautiful voice (that you can generally hear regardless of most amplification i've tried, to a greater or lesser extent)...that i really was looking for a transparent, powerful amp that could just deliver the signal effortlessly. I found a good quality source running thru a tube preamp and Krell amp was very, very good with the SF Cremona, one of the best times i heard the Cremona.

YMMV. Good luck!