Apogee Scintilla Power

Thanks for the advice and there is quite a bit of old discussion around Krell, etc. Looking for reliability and more modern approach. SS or tubes. Maybe Pass Labs. Great but expensive. 

Sorry, as noted in the opening of this thread the Scintillas are not for sale (or the subs I needed before the Scintillas that have been repurposed in friends systems) or my Duetta Signatures, or my Dynaco A25’s or my Polk SDA’s or my Klipsch LaScala’s and old BGW and Crown stuff and.....a long list of audio brilliance in its own way....what a great hobby.....or should i say great affliction. 

 Actually maybe I do have a problem should have a sale.....:).

The only thing i “bet” is that some people may like my stereo system and some may not...and depending on my mood and the barometric pressure i can tend to vary on my satisfaction level as well......:)

Great question! After all, more than 30 years passed already since the birth of the Scintilla and, in terms of the amps driving them, there are few news. I've read that Dan d'Agostino, Nelsson Pass and Bob Carver are known for using Scinnies as a benchmark difficult speakers to drive in their labs, and so forth they offered solutions to drive them. Somebody mentioned Wollcot Audio. Many years ago, Henry kndly offered to shp me a par of his monoblocks in order to both demystify the fact that tubes mght not be able to drive the 1 Ohm Scinnies and also to add one more page to the already stellar history of his brand. Since his amps were rated for 2 Ohms minimum (if memory serves me well) and we weren't sure if they'll stand the dropped impedance load of the Scinnies, I've respectfully declined the offer (in spite of the fct that Mr. Wolcott took upon himself any possible negative consequences of that "experiment"). A similar story, happened with Ms. Eva Manley, who offered to modiffy a pair of Manley Neo-Classic 500's, down to a 2 Ohms outputs, in order to try driving the 1 Ohm Scinnes. Somebody talked me out of it, by nssting that those tubes would be very short lived, consideing the load (now, thinking it over, my guess is that it not necessarily true). For years now, I'm driving the 1Ohm Scinnes with a pair of Gryphon Reference Ones, 150w/8Ohms, pure class A each (1200w/1ohm and 2400w/0.5Ohms -with peaks to 5000w-! Yeah, that means control and definitely he Scinnes needs and benefits from it, regardless of other opinions. Triode tubes are in the DAC and in the pre-amplifier. Marvelous sound overall, since I've never heard better. A pair of self-powered Velodyne sub-woofers (sacrilege, heh!?...;) compliments nicely the setting, since supplies the necessary extra bass response which was lacking in the 30-60Hz area. Class D, extremly fast, good quality bass, never lags behind. The only questionable "improvement" I may think of would be to add extra tubes, weather the Gryphons sound is extremely "analog" (no dryness, no solid state "nasty" characteristics, that's Fleming Rasmussen's quest, mark and legacy!). As I just happen to have a friend who carries Jadis in his system,  might borrow his JA80's monoblocks (they have a 1 Ohm tap and deliver 90watts/ 8Ohms, each) to see how would they work with the Scinnes, by either replacing or complementing the Gryphons monos. BTW, did anybody tried to drive 1 Ohm Scnnies with Jadis monoblock amps? Any inputs? Thank you.

PS. BTW, with the right amps (such as the Gryphon Refs) the speaker cables ("shotgun" configuration, made by the Siltech OEM) have a 4 ft. length (de-mystifying the theory of the maximum 2 ft. long cables). Now, to understand the capability of the Gryphon dual monos, I have to emphasize that, even at 25% of the bias setting, they are able to drive the 1 Ohm Scinnes, in a satisfactory manner (better anyway than a pair of Bryston would be capable of; I've hd Bryston 7b's, before the Gryphon). Of course, I'm usng them at 100% bias setting. The only drawback with the Gryphon is the extra $100 extra burden on the power bill, monthly!...:)

I don’t have it anymore, but back in the 90’s, I drove my Apogees with a McIntosh MC-2300.  It ran them easily I might ad.  The Mac was rated safe to a half ohm, if I’m remembering correctly.

The  only headache were Macs silly speaker screw terminals.  But some well made spade lugs took car of that.

The 2300 could drive the Scintillas to silly volume.  You will be surprised at how good the bass response can be, when driven by a strong amp.

Musical Fidelity AMS-100 in a modern amp 

we sold Apogee and Acoustat and Jim’s amp is a decent match for sure. The big CJ with autoformers also works w magic midrange