Well, I have one and have commented several times over the last couple of years, usually referring to how happy I am with it powering my Klipsch CW4’s. Is there anything in particular you would like to know?
Sorry, I spend some time on the Steve Hoffman Forum, and probably posted there. As to your questions, I like it a lot, and have used it with several sets of speakers, including the mentioned CW4's, but also Rogers LS3/5a's, Joseph Audio Pulsar 2's, JM Reynaud Bliss Silvers and Cantabile Jubilees, and Klipsch RP600M's. I've tried it with low sensitivity LS50's, but didn't like the combo as much as with the higher sensitivity speakers. I do feel it is good value, and I plan to add the DAC option, but am sort of waiting for some reviews, but that may take awhile. Compared to other integrated amps I have, in its price range, I'd say it is my favorite. Those include a Hegel H160, Naim Nait 50, and a Sugden A21 SE Sig. As to what I would change about it, nothing comes to mind, but I'll think about that a bit more, and let you know. Oh, and my room is a large open design of 20'x37', but remember, I'm using it with CW4's, so they fill the room with music, no bottleneck with the Moonriver. I'd say its strengths are tonality, midrange purity, decent bass, and music just sounds right to me. I do have tube preamps, poweramps and Ganfet monoblocs, so my view is not restricted. I feel it is the equal of them all, when paired with speakers of medium to high sensitivity. What more can I tell you? |
Thank you @doni . That is great information and very cogent. I appreciate this much. |
@grislybutter Soooo well put. 3/4 items look like lame boxes to me. |
yes, 3/4th sounds about right. I would love to have a list of beautiful amps, the same way I collated https://speakerchoices.com/index.html But I know so little about amps, I should stay away from it. |
I just heard it when I drove down from Phoenix to Alma Audio in San Diego to demo the Boenicke W8SE speakers (which came home with me). Those loudspeakers are supposed to be fairly current hungry and that amp did a great job driving them. The sound running through that setup produced a nice sized soundstage, super clean top end, mids/vocals were outstanding and the low end was sufficient. Of course they had a nice DAC and nice cables hooked up as well for my speaker demo but that amp, along with the similarly priced Hegel H400 would both be on my list in the $7K price point. I thought it was a really nice bit of kit. |
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You might want to check out how the amp measured, noting especially the channel separation and clipping power into 8 and 4 ohm. Moonriver 404 Reference integrated amplifier Measurements | Stereophile.com
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Thank you @cmrbkk and @twoleftears Great notes and recommendations. |