ICE Amps for classical music?


I listen to classical orchestral music at heavy volume. I detest reproduced music for always sounding more or less electronic and not acoustic. Real music is beautiful in a way reproduced music--so far at least-- never is. I have become curious about Wyred4sound amps because of low price and high watts. I am wondering if any of you "mostly classical" listeners have heard these amps and feel they do no more damage to music than amps which are NOT ICE amps. I am using a Plinius SA100 now and have used a VAC 100/100,
a Bedini Classic 100/100, a Music Reference RM-9, and other tube and solid state amps. They all had their pluses and minuses, of course, but for least electronic, clearly the Bedini was the winner. So what about ICE amps?
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Showing 2 responses by lacee

I am sure I am not the first to say this but since I am late to the party and have only read the question not the answers,there are good and bad amps in all genre that can do harm to classical music, or any other music for that matter.

Wrong amp and wrong speakers and no type of music is safe.

Full blown orchestral classical music needs amps and speakers that are full range.
If your classical taste is small chamber ensembles, then small two ways and low to mid power tube amps are very nice.

I have Ice powered amps,Red Dragon Leviathan monos and have used them on Tannoy Ardens, Merlin TSM and now on Ref 3A Grand Veenas.
I listen to all types of music, and all styles of classical, so far my Ice amps have yet to be bested in a recent amp comparison I have had with some pretty well respected tube amps.

If other Ice amps are similar to mine, then I would say you have nothing to worry about.
Do you really need a great tube pre amp to get the best out of class D?

I can say that for cd playing I run balanced (DIY Neutrik/mogami)interconnects from an Audio Aero Capitole 24/192 direct into the Red Draggon Leviathans and to me this is as good as when I run the amps from my Audio Valve Eclipse(tube) pre amp.
Truth be told the AA does have a couple of small 6021 tubes,so I do run my amps from tubes but it doesn't seem to be tube dependant as I would prefer one way over the other.
I don't think more(tubes)is always better, to me less is better.

I never tried my amps on demanding speakers that drop below 2 ohms,but I have run the amps on Tannoy Ardens, Merlin TSMMXe and now Ref 3a Grand Veenas, and the amps have never run out of steam and I am careful not to crank the amps for fear of damaging the speakers not the amps.

The smoothness and detail are there in the Dragons,my previous amp was the Cary 300bsei, and I never felt anything lacking in the smooth department going class D.
Maybe this was a characteristic of old D amps, or cheap ones,but my experience with Red Dragon amps (for over a year now)is nothing like that.

I've been at this for almost 40 years, and I've racked up a list of amps and speakers that would fill a high end salon,so I've got quite a good set off past experience to draw from, and from that I would have to say that D amps can be every bit as good if not better than any of the SET, OTL, solid state, class A, AB, and push pull tube amps from 6v6, el34 to 300B to 845 to kt 66 types of amplification devices.

If anything that my D amps are picky with it is the power.
I have gone to some lengths to improve on it over the last few years and the rewards have been great.
The Dragon amps seem to be more dependant on quality power than most of my other amps however.
Even to the point of them sounding better when driven off the Hydra 2(with Annaconda power cords)than of a Guardian two.
As far as speaker wire and interconnects, I just wenr thru a bit of a comparison of good examples of each and found that they really didn't affect the sound as much as doing the power upgrades.
As mentioned my DIY balanced cables were as good as a couple of name brand cables and my clear Day speaker wires were as good as several more costly cables, so I use them.
If i could add anythinge;lse to this ,it's that D amps performance can vary depending on how they get their power.Dirt in dirt out.
They won't sugar coat things like some warm ripe tube gear can.
And they won't rob you of all the music you paid to hear either in that sea of syrup.