Amplifiers:A Keeper for Life. Do you know of one ?

The CAT JL-3 Signatures are the end of the road for me. They are rated at "only" 150w but this is very misleading compared to the rating of many other amplifiers I have tried on Magnepan series 3 speakers. Of course the JL-3s are a lot of amp to use with these speakers, but it quickly showed me that these amps are affected by nothing.

The JL-3's each have 16 6550 power tubes driven in triode. The older ARC Classic 150 amps used 8 of these tubes to achieve the "same" rating in triode mode. And the CL150 amps shut down just as the Maggies were starting to play their magic. With the JL-3s driving the Magnepans, the only limit here is the speaker itself.

And the JL-3s are claimed to drive the very difficult MBL 101s and also can be configured to drive the difficult 1-ohm Apogee speakers. So driving the Dynaudio speakers should be a piece of cake for the CATs.

And not only do they have phenomenol drive capability, they have a dynamic contrast and resolution potential that you have to hear to believe.

So all of this adds up to an amplifier that I suspect will be with me for a long long time.

The only issue is that they need dedicated 20A circuits as they take quite a surge when powered on.

John

My older bro owns a Marantz 2215..oldie but powerful.

Huh? This was the lowest powered receiver of the Marantz 22xx/23xx series, at 15 wpc.