Amp for Vandersteen 2ci


Hi all, I am planning on upgrading my amp for my Vandersteen 2ci. I am looking for an amp with a little more power and with a budget at 2k. I currently have the B&K ST2140 amp with a Rotel RC-970BX preamp which I went to RC-995 preamp with balanced output. Their are a few amp I was thinking in no particular order:

Classe CA-200

Threshold Audio S-300

Parasound Halo A21

Krell KAV 250a

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Ag insider logo xs@2xhighend64

Showing 1 response by bkeske

@highend64 I had an old Belles 400A Powering my 2CE Sigs, and unlike @wig , enjoyed the combo a great deal. ‘Warm’ is very subjective in degree, but to me, those old Belles amps are incredibly natural and realistic in their presentation. You would have to believe they were mosfet amps like some of his later amps, but they are not, incredibly. Just depends on what you desire in sonics.

That said, I had a failure at the incoming area of the power supply, and as mentioned, could not find anyone locally that would work on it. I did talk to Rich at Signature Sound, who performs some warranty work for David, and also other Belles repair, and he was willing to take a look, and pretty confident he could repair the 400A. But, at 60-70 lb. It was going to cost a pretty penny just to ship each way. So, understand that with an old Belles like a 350A, you could find yourself in a similar spot. That said, I love the 400A, still have it, and may get it repaired one of these days.

I moved on to Vandy Treo’s, and replaced the 400A with a pair of Belles MB200 mono blocks, higher cost used than your budget, unless you get a steal, and really like the combo a lot. 

Still have my 2CE Sigs as rear speakers in my living room. Yea, a bit overkill. But they are great speakers, and now doing back-up duty should the situation arise.

You have some good suggestions here, but @gdnrbob basically hit on the popular amp combos with Vandy’s. I just tend to gravitate towards Belles personally.