B&K ST-202 or Forte 1A?

What mod's have been done to the 202 ?

How loud do you like to listen to your music and how big is your room ?

Musical preferences ?

Knowing this might give us a better idea. Sean
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While the Forte' is a far more refined amp that is "more powerful" than its' ratings would lead one to believe, i would probably stick with the B&K. While the Forte' might work better for Classical and jazz, it will not come across as having the "drive" that the B&K tends to produce, especially when being pushed harder. The 1A is much more open and airy sounding but does not have the "warmth" or "body" that the B&K does. As to the B&K amp, it can be made into a very good sounding amp due to the VERY simplistic design. Even with the limited parts count that are in these amps, you can get rid of another 10% of them due to lack of necessity and sonic degradation. Upgrading the input cap makes a BIG difference and bypassing the the power supply caps also helps to clean up and open up the top end. Sean
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Unsound, i did not even notice that in the original post. Thanks for pointing that out to both of us. Neither amp would be real happy with that type of a load in my opinion. Not only does the B&K not have enough power supply, it is seriously lacking heatsink for that type of operation. The Forte' would deal with it a little easier, but i don't think that it would have enough juice to get the job done and do it cleanly. Sean
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What an amp will "do" and how it operates optimally can be very different things. The ST-202 will "do" 2 ohm loads. In doing that, it will run QUITE hot, sound more smeared and less detailed, etc...

As to Unsound's suggestion, the M-200's are capable of appr 160 amps of output peak to peak. It will do 2 ohm loads no problem and maintain a similar "house sound" if you want to stick with B&K. Sean
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