Help me find a smooth solid-state amp?

The BEL (Brown Electronic Labs) 1001 MkV is the smoothest most tube-like SS amp on the planet. Check out TAS Golden Ear Awards 2000 issue 127.

Nice speakers, IMO. I auditioned them twice and almost purchased them. I listened to them with ARC tube gear and a Classe integrated. They sounded better with tubes, but still great with the Classe. They also require, beleive it or not, around 500 hours of break in and if yours do not have this many hours on them, I would wait before auditioning other gear. I am not familiar with your amp. Older Adcoms were a little raspy in the HF's but that was a long time ago. You may want to try auditioning/demoing a DAC for your DVD player and see if it is the source that is bothering you. And, as Craig mentioned take a look at the cables in your system starting with the source. I picked up Harmonic Truthlink IC's used at this site for $125.00 to tame the HF's on my Castle speakers and they did the job. If you have not used isolation devices on your player you will want to do that first as well. They do not need to be expensive, Vibrapods work very well in smoothing out HF's when used on the source and also the preamp in your case. Speaker placement and room treatment (what is allowable) will tame highs. If you did not need as much power I think that the Conrad Johnson tube integrated would be a nice match for the 5.0's. That is what I was thinking anyway when I listened to them, though I never heard the two together. I would start with the basics and go from there. Good luck.

i usually own a classe ca 400 amp in my system but it nothing compare to the new trinity amp from llano design. check them out, they just release the new v-plex design which is solid state. my trinity amp use two tubes which is call hybrid design. very smooth sounding amp with very tight and deep bass. prices from 1999 to 6999 and have a 30 day money back.

Pass amps are very smooth sounding solid state amps. The Aleph 3 in particular is a real deal compared to what you can get in its price range. It would be plenty of power with your Soliloquys. I have owned the Aleph 3 and the Aleph 2 monos, and the 2s are not that much more powerful. Also as someone else mentioned your speakers require significant break-in. I have read many comments stating that they were extremely bright until the got a couple hundred hours on them.

above responses to check out sam tellig's article in the dec s'phile are good - he also liked the mccormack & the musical fidelity amp, but from what he said, i don't think the m/f would be a good match for you. prolly would be better off getting a tubed pre-amp - imho, it seems the only way to enjoy cd's.

but, if yer intent on getting another amp, here's a shameless plug: check out my ad on this site for my electrocompaniet aw100 - 100wpc, 190 into 4 ohms, 80 amps current output... ;~)

doug