Do high dollar mono blocks truly improve the Sound Quality over the mid tier amps
I'm currently running a pair of Classe Delta Mono"s to drive my Wilson Alexx V's. IMO they sound wonderful with plenty of power. I've been considering upgrading these amps to the next price/quality level. My biggest concern is whether I'll get the level of improvement in SQ that will move the needle. I'd love to hear from folks who have made this move in their systems or heard comparisons at shows or dealers.
I recently upgraded from JC1 monos to a CH Precision M1.1. The differences are shocking, as they should be for the price difference. :)
what was the shocking difference you heard? could you put it in words?
20k --> 100k --> 5x needle movement?
$20k --> $60k (M1.1 in stereo is not $100k)
3X the performance, difficult to quantify but absolutely worth the $ IMO.
Top to bottom it's just much more transparent, more detail, more precision/focus. Soundstage has more depth, all the stuff I had hoped for it delivered.
@skinzy Over at SoundStageNetwork.com | SoundStage.com - SoundStage! Home the former reviewer there, Jeff Fritz, wrote several articles about vintage amps and how good they sounded to him. It was in his series on his amp search, his current reference amp was a $25k-ish used Boulder amp, and I think it was a Theshold or Coda amp that he used temporarily that made him wonder about the very expensive amps he was always reaching for.
Saying all of that, my most expensive electronic piece is my amp. I also hope to buy another brand-new amp for 2x the price of the used amp. It is not better than what I have but it sounds different. Variety.
@yyzsantabarbaraThanks for this insight. My sense is your correct about sound signature of amps as others here have stated. It seems there are two categories in sound from the various manufacturers, the detailed airy amps vs the fuller punchier ones. I'm thinking Constellation vs D'agostino. Plus one pays dearly for fancy casework. The Class D's also offer a viable alternative as @audioman58 suggests. Low energy consumption and light weight.features are very compelling.
Skinzy if anyone was a die hard class A, AB or tube amps
my preconceptions were destroyed after hearing the AGD Class D- GAN Fet amps
are the future they beat with relative ease anything at their price point and well above. Is it the best I have heard ,No. but you have to spend multitudes more.
my brothers Tenor Amplifiers ,no longer made SS- tube are
classic greats when new $100k. Just check the AGD out ,the Jeff Roland is very good also but much fancier case work ,and cannot say they are better.
With a focus on downsizing and having moved to Class D several years back, I have no practical interest in large heavy power guzzling amps anymore. That’s just me. To each their own. Especially when it comes to what look and sound happens to float one’s boat.
The other recent gamechanger for me is applying DSP for room correction, sound tweaking to personal preference, etc. I easily enjoy a lot of gear much more than I would be able to do otherwise were it not for DSP done well.
Practically, I am mostly off the equipment merry go round at this point. I still like trying new things, but it's now more because I just want to rather than that I need to.
The Class D's also offer a viable alternative as @audioman58 suggests. Low energy consumption and light weight.features are very compelling.
@skinzyIts not just low heat and light weight! Class D offers design criteria to the designer that also allow for some very nice distortion characteristics.
In case you are not aware of this fact, the difference you heard between amps when you upgraded was the difference in the distortion signature of those amps.
Class D offers a means to keep what distortion is made quite innocuous to the human ear. So if they are designed properly they can be very musical, erasing the advantages that class A or AB operation used to hold.
If you want to go crazy, a pair of darTZeell NHB-468s is for sale here on Audiogon for a "mere" $129K.
Michael Fremer of Stereophile did a review, matching them with his Wilson Alexx and apparently loved them. His article also discusses various monoblocks he has paired with this speakers.
I still favor quad amping with 4 Classe Deltas before I did this, though.
Supposedly, mono blocks have more umph to give as well as better separation and are quieter. I currently have both and I’d be hard pressed to tell the difference. Each brand has their own strengths, but power has never been a problem. Separation is harder to define, because all three of my amps are of different designs. The integrated is SS(Hegel H390), the Acoustats have SS inputs and tube outputs and the BHK 300’s are the exact opposite, tube inputs and SS outputs.
Atmashere when was the last time the class D mono blocks
were Officially upgraded or improved ? AGD for example has had 2-33 upgrades that are a noticeable step up in sonics depending on model.
there has been several new Gan Mosfets in the last 2 years just an observation .
I use a pair of bridged Classe DR3 VHC monos in one of my systems and feel that they still hold up very well to current amps. I'd be inclined to stick with them if I were you - any improvement might be infinitesimal but at a far from infinitesimal cost.
I ran the Classes in my main system for awhile, driving Wilson Maxx 2s but found that I like a CJ Premier 11a just a tad better.
I have heard those speakers a few times with Ayre Reference gear, D'Agastino gear and darTZeel or however their pattern of letters is supposed to be.
For years I was "chasing the dragon" after hearing those with the Ayre gear as it is one of the most memorable listening experiences I have ever had and what drove me to design my own speakers and start Verdant.
The difficulty is that you could easily buy a pair of amps that you like less than the Classe or could find ones that blow them out of the water. It is a matter of taste. I am biased heavily toward musicality and staging rather than accuracy and measurement. It is why I am biased heavily toward tube gear or very musical SS gear like AVM, Riviera and Audia Flight.
What do you want more of? What is missing? Are there moments when you are disappointed and how? Answer these questions. If you can't spot issues then maybe you just have an upgrade bug and this could and should be scratched elsewhere in your system.
@wspohn & @verdantaudio, thanks for these observations. I'm also in the "warm" "musical" camp as I think most are. I'd maybe describe it as neutral vs colored where "colored" is not a bad thing. Measurements only tell one side of the story. I find colored amps are more enjoyable up to a point.
I'll soon be able to answer my own question as I've decided to go for a pair of Momentum M400 MxV's.
Atmashere when was the last time the class D mono blocks
were Officially upgraded or improved ? AGD for example has had 2-33 upgrades that are a noticeable step up in sonics depending on model.
there has been several new Gan Mosfets in the last 2 years just an observation .
@audioman58We spent about 5 years refining the amp we released. It had to sound better than our tube amps, else people in the market might think we were nuts or just cashing in. Plus I wanted to enjoy them in my own system and not miss the tubes. We met those goals and so the amps haven't needed refinement since release. I can't speak for other manufacturers in that regard- each follows their own path. Its not as if we are sitting on our hands though. We switched to some newer devices in the 2nd year of production as they made our heatsink more effective. That required an entirely new module. But it does not sound different from the old one.
Evaluate amp vs amp and ignore the mono-block vs traditional. Sure Mono blocks can have some advantages, but many top amps are built as 2 monoblocks in traditional chasses. Monoblocks increase the length of the signal cables while reducing the length of the speaker cables. No consensus on which is better.
But a better amp will definitely sound better (truism?). I much prefer class A.
@carlsbad2Mono blocks also offer significantly more power if the stereo version of the amp shares the watts. Love your system. Hoping a "better" amp will move the needle. I will report back.
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