MBL's of course! The MBL 9011 are Mono's with 5000W; dimensions 480 x 320 x 870mm.
Hall of Fame: BIGGEST BADDEST Monster Amps
There have been a lot of posts on:
"tube amps with balls"
"amps to drive my 1 ohm, inefficient speakers"
"amps for rock and roll"
"Levinson, Krell, Bryston, Pass Labs etc"
"sounds more powerful than its rating suggests"
"despite low rating, puts out huge current" etc.
But I somehow find these threads divergent and confusing and still cant seem to short list a new set of monoblocks to biamp (low end) and COMMAND my Magneplanar Tympanis, fill up a large room with EFFORTLESS dynamics and CONTROL the bass with no debates, questions, reservations or tweaky failures.
So let's please hear your thoughts:
What are the all time, hall of fame, MONSTER power amps, where there should be no doubt whatsover about HUGE amounts, of effortlessly dynamic, clean, smooth, audiophile power.
I have to think that for the low end of biamping, this should be a solid state amp, unless someone can really suggest an unusually robust and low maintenance tube amp.
Mark Levinson 20.6?
Pass X-600's?
Bryston 7 B monoblocks?
Parasound monoblocks?
Thank you.
"tube amps with balls"
"amps to drive my 1 ohm, inefficient speakers"
"amps for rock and roll"
"Levinson, Krell, Bryston, Pass Labs etc"
"sounds more powerful than its rating suggests"
"despite low rating, puts out huge current" etc.
But I somehow find these threads divergent and confusing and still cant seem to short list a new set of monoblocks to biamp (low end) and COMMAND my Magneplanar Tympanis, fill up a large room with EFFORTLESS dynamics and CONTROL the bass with no debates, questions, reservations or tweaky failures.
So let's please hear your thoughts:
What are the all time, hall of fame, MONSTER power amps, where there should be no doubt whatsover about HUGE amounts, of effortlessly dynamic, clean, smooth, audiophile power.
I have to think that for the low end of biamping, this should be a solid state amp, unless someone can really suggest an unusually robust and low maintenance tube amp.
Mark Levinson 20.6?
Pass X-600's?
Bryston 7 B monoblocks?
Parasound monoblocks?
Thank you.
81 responses Add your response
Here's one more for you....Audire Otez. A very over looked hand built monster amplifier with 16 pairs of bipolars per channel. Weighing in at 85lbs and pumping 800 wpc into 2 ohms.The company has been around for over 30 years. I've seen these units go for as little as $1200..which is an absolute steal!!! One of the best kept secrets in quality and extreme power.The b&w pictures on the site don't do these amplifiers justice. |
Whoaru99 You make a reasonable point, but this brings to mind one of the creators of the "high end" industry, Harry Pearson aka HP of the Absolute Sound. When that magazine had more integrity than it has today, the "absolute sound" was the benchmark for our "goal". And it was defined not simply as live, but as the sound of live UNAMPLIFIED music in open space. An update on this thought could easily create a thread of its own, but philosophically, the high end goal has never really prioritized the recreation of the live sound that you might get from stacks of Crown amps, for example. You might also find it interesting to know that some live, amplified bands, who were well known for masterful production and great sound, actually did use audiophile brands. Weather Report apparently used stacks of Levinson amps and put on an amazing show, although that was just slightly before my time so others might have more detail. |
Cwlondon, perhaps not. But I think often gear that does not have a certain name is usually deemed unworthy by audiophiles. However, one thing that occurs to me is that reproducing "live" sound in the home is sometimes referred to as a goal. The point is that pretty much any live sound that is amplified is almost certainly amplified by pro audio amps such as Crown; not Levinson, Krell, or Halcro, et al. |
Whoaru99 I thought about Crown briefly, in particular the Crown "macro reference" which was monstrously powerful, but also had a bit of an audiophile reputation. But I never heard one, and it mysteriously disappeared from the ratings as well as the audiophile scene. So I dont know if they are really worthy of our hall of fame discussion here. |
Here's another pair of big tube amps, Tube Research GT800 4 Chassis, 1240 pounds and a bargain at $140,000.00 :^). |
Probably blashpemy, but why not one or two Crown K2's to run the low end? S/N ratio >100dB Damping factor >3000 500w/ch @ 8 800w/ch @ 4 1250w/ch @ 2 1600w bridged @ 8 2500w bridged @ 4 All stable/continuous power ratings... Not saying it's the baddest, because Crown also made a 10kW amp, but it required a 3-phase power circuit. |
The Yamaha MX10000. Rock solid, solid state powerhouse amp employing some of the highest quality components available at the time (late 70's-very early 80s). Built like a tank. No coloration of the sound. NONE. Simply pure power. I owned MX10000 /CX10000 combination some years back and am SO sorry I let these go. I was driving 3 pair of McIntosh XR-7 Isoplanar Radiator loudspeakers (8ohm), each pair paired with a McIntosh MQ107 Environmental Equalizer. The Mac's really drink up the power in order to really drive the base but boy, the Yamaha had no trouble at all. With the 3 pairs of speakers running simultaneously I was readily able to push the OHM switch on the Yamaha to move from 8ohm to 4ohm for even more distoration free, driving power. I did not venture too often in the the 2ohm range that the Yamaha offered via the switch. I did and do listen to ALL categories of music and found no shortcomings from the Yamaha with any of them. This includes running the amp at very low volumes where I found NO loss of detail and the base still managing to punch me in the breastbone. And hey, this was before the use of the higher quality speaker and interconnect cables hit the scene. I still have two pair of the XR-7s being driven by a Yamaha MX1000U /CX1000U combination and it sounds terrific (the air moves my trousers when I really crank it up on a more base-laden soundtrack). For some reason the solid state Yamaha's of yesteryear are overlooked by serious audiophiles. I figure, great, helps keep the price down. If anyone knows of an MX10000 for sale I kindly invite you to contact me. |
"Monster" amps should be those that are not current limited into real world loads. The only amps made that have the ability to double current into halved impedances are those solid-state-of-the-art pieces made by Levinson and Krell. And Krell does it biased as Class A. Rowland, McCormick, Pass, Theta and others don't do it. |
How about Great American Sound's Godzilla mono power amp? It put out over a kilowatt into a 2 ohm load. I saw one at a hi fi show in the late '70s and my memory is that the Godzilla needed a 220v AC line, like a big window air conditioner. Unfortunately GAS only made a couple of dozen of them and most went to members of the Grateful Dead who used Godzillas in their backline. Bob Weir used something like 4 of them on stage. |
Why not pick up a Levinson to match the one you have? The old Krell Ksa-300's have (I think) 5kva transformer so it fits the hall of fame as a stereo amp. The Krell mono MDA-500's must also be up there in the mix I'd guess...ie, two 4.5 kva transformers. You do have dedicated 20A circuts don't you? Dave |
In 1970, in Edmonds, Washington, Bob Carver launched the Phase Linear 700 power amplifier. The hum and noise figures were better than 100 dB below the 350 watt per channel output. For short bursts into low impedance loads, this amp could approach 2K watts! It came out when rock music was the rave, when low sensitivity speakers like the B&W 70 and AR LST were popular, and when you could get high voltage transistors at a reasonable price. It was a breakthrough amp providing super power at low cost ($599). This is a must for the Hall of Fame. |
That's easy. McIntosh MC1201 monoblocks. Simple, direct, bulletproof, Amazon power flow and almost triode-like revelation and relaxed demeanor. And then there's this: http://www.mcintoshlabs.com/mcprod/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=14&cat=Power+Amplifiers&prodid=1115&product=MC2KW That is, if you have room for a total of 6 boxes to get 2000 wrms per amp, with 8000 watts peak. Phil |
Sounds like you are asking about vertical biamping? So, you are looking for 4 mono blocks? Why not just get a Theta Dreadnaught and use 4 of it's channels or 250 watts each to vertical bi-amp? It would probably equal all of the mono blocks you listed for a lot less money. If not, and you are talking about just "normal" bi-amping. I would take any of the bigger ARC mono blocks over the ones you have listed. But, there is a cost factor. |
