For classical music lovers best amp for large orchestral forces?


I recently upgraded my pre to an arc ref 6se. Currently using pas xa25. It's a very good amp but I'm noticing a fair amount of compression when playing large symphonic works. My speakers are Dalis and they are excellent as is the arc.

For smaller forces, chamber, piano and voices the system works beautifully. But if I'm looking for more transparency and a deeper sound stage for symphonies I find sometimes a boxy cramped sound. Looking to spend around 8k or less either tube or solid state. There have been discussions about the xa25 and what's better but they fill up immediately with tangents of philosophical and technical discussions of how one hears. I'm looking for as many possibilities of actual units that I can read about and possibly hear.

Thanks for your ideas.

roxy1927

Showing 1 response by eric5kim

My Raven Silhouette is a tube amp and drove my difficult Raidho C3.0 with ease. 
I listen to a lot of large scale symphonies. I have tried 6 different amps and the Ravens won out. I also had ARC VT80SE and they were great with easier speakers like the Focals Electra 1038BEs, Tyler linbrook, usher mini dancer, but struggled with sopra 2 and Raidho  

NAD C298 was laughably bad. Tried it due to accolades everywhere. Can’t believe magazine reviews.  
 
I might be selling the Ravens to go with SET due to a high sensitivity speaker change. 
They never come up for sale because the actual owners hold on to them.