Amp upgrade recommendations

I highly recommend moving to a GamuT D-200 amp.
This amp is the best value going on the used market at $2500 or so used.
I know a guy who paired it with Vanderstein 5's and he loved it. He moved from it to a Spectral amp because all of the rest of his components were Spectral.

If you do not have a hard load to drive it is very difficult to beat the GamuT amp, at any price. I would love to have someone evaluate it against Mcormick amps.

BTW TAS gave the D-200 the Golden Ear award in 2000. They compared it (very favorable) to the tube LAMM monoblocks hich run like $30k. This amp is very hard to beat, and it can be upgaded by Gamut quite easily as technology progresses.

KF

Tpsonic,

Contrary to popular beleif the GamuT D200 has a lot of power. The amp has 200wpc into 8 ohms. 400 Watts into 4 ohms and can deliver close to 50amps of current. This is not a D100, you really have to push this amp for it to loose composure. Your Vandy 3A's will be no problem for this amp.

Also, I have compared directly Plinius amplification and the GamuT D200. IMHO the Plinius only has the bottom end over the GamuT. Everything else, the GamuT does better. Plinius sound is muddier and darker than GamuT sound. Unless you get a New Plinius 102 amp. I have heard that this amp they fixed a lot of flaws SA100 series has. I do not want to knock Plinius too much, I had 2 SA100 mk3's in MONO for a few years, and I will tell you... for driving Magnapan 3.6's it is very difficult to find getter more powerful amps for the price of used SA100 mk3 amps. These amps could drive my Maggies like no other amps I ever had (665 wpc into 4 ohms). The thing about the Maggies is that they are not dark sounding speakers (especially if you remove the tweeter resistor). The darkness of the Plinius amps is counteracted by the 3.6's to produce an extraordinary good sound. I would not recommend Plinius power with too many other speakers.

Pass would be an interesting comparison to the GamuT. So would McCormick.

The D200 amp sounds nothing like any other solid state or tube amp I have heard. And people are giving them away for $2600 used. I find this amazing...

KF

No amplifier is perfect or has reached perfection.

The moment you think your amp is perfect, try it with a different set of speakers or different preamp. It will not work with everything equally well. That would be perfection if it did.

I have heard a lot of amps in the past 16 years, and I would not call any of them perfect or having reached perfection.

The inherent problem with amps is that as an amp's power is increased, some low level detail/musical transparency is almost always given up. One may not realize this if they have been brought up on huge 100wpc+ solid state amps. Try listening to a nice 1 wpc SET tube amp connected to some 100db+ sensitive speakers. You might be very amazed at the sound you get from a rig like this. I have friends that have been into audio since before I was born that swear by this setup.

The inherent problem with lower powered amps is just that. They do not have the power to drive many speakers out there. There just are not too many speakers made today that are 100db+ sensitive.

Anyway, before I go, I will give you a specific example... the Pass X-1000 amps or probably even the Pass X-600 amps will make the Magnapan 3.6's sing better than any McCormick amp made EVER (Rev A or LAE or otherwise). No ifs ands or buts. How do I know this? Well I have heard the Maggies driven with many many different amps. The best I have ever heard them is with Pass X-1000 amps. No 500 or 600 wpc amp can compare to the 2000wpc that the PASS monsters put out into the 3.6's. It just does not compare. Maggies love power and amps, and the more you feed them the better they sound. I use the Maggie 3.6's because Eagles has them, and I lived with a pair for 3 years (and I have many fond memories of them). McCormick amps are good at driving Maggies (and some versions are better than others), but there are deffinitly better amps out there for this application (certainly there are A LOT worse amps one could use than the McCormick). I am not gonna knock McCormick too much because those Pass X-1000 amps are insanely expensive when compared to any McCormick amp made. On the flip side, I would not be driving 100db+ sensitive speakers with a PASS X-1000 amps. So not even the X-1000 amps are 'perfect'.

Anytime, I hear anyone (especially quoted in a publication or proclaiming in a publication) say something is perfect or has reched perfection, a very big red flag goes up in my head, and I get really skeptical of what is being told to me.

KF

Ok, sorry if I got a little too high on my soap box. I tend to get a bit carried away when folks throw the term 'perfection' around when describing audio components.

Even with smiley faces.

Some people actually beleive a lot of what they read in Audio rags. That in itself boggles my mind.

Musical audio sound is really all about synergy. Mating components together with the right cables and speakers to get the best sound from the system you have.

I will get down off my soapbox now.

KF