ICE Amps for classical music?

Yes (assuming used with speakers that benefit form high power, high current SS amplification)!

The BEl Canto Ref1000 mkii delivers all the goods in my system even with power hungry larger OHM Walshes and I have yet to see it break a sweat, even with dynamic recordings at fairly high SPLs.

I think the max dynamic range in Redbook CD format is 96db. Maybe someone can confirm.

I never thought about it before but a truly state of the art system should be able to knock a house down (I suppose)!

Oh, well, back to the drawing board....

I have emergency door lock keys that sit on top of the frame of each door with such a lock on it in my house.

Despite sitting on a thinly carpeted concrete foundation, these keys will without fail vibrate off the frame and fall to the floor a few minutes into a moderately high volume listening session on my big OHM 5s.

Other than that, the effects are not too obvious but you can feel the music just fine a good ways back from the speakers when a decent (not even great) quality recording is playing.

"So, unless you in flute music or country music or pop and wish to avoid listener fatigue - you better pay more attention to peaks - equally or more as you pay attention to other attributes of your equipment. "

I'd agree with that except that all kinds of music benefit from better peaks and transients in general. Clean sharp peaks and transients (even at lower levels) is perhaps the biggest difference I hear with my better speakers since moving to the Bel canto ref1000mkii IcePower amps.

They work in all departments for classical music.

I've found a tube pre-amp to be a very good fit however I looked specifically for an ICEPower based amp that implemented higher input impedance than stock ICEPower modules which are 10K ohms I believe in order to minimize distortion which can wreck havoc on classical music in particular.

The Bel Canto Ref 1000 mkiis are 100K input impedance unbalanced. Older less expensive BC Ref 1000s (not mkii) are stock 10K input impedance as is the S300 I believe.

Wyred4Sound amps are ~60K ohm input impedance.

There are others as well, but many vendors of IcePower amps go with the stock Icepower unit and basic configuration. That may not be a good match on paper with some tube pre-amps having higher output impedances.

Are there any amps that publish specs regarding 1 ohm loads?

Not sure how common that is these days. The market must be quite limited.

Interesting I know of one case of a discerning A'goner who is also a recording industry professional I believe that used Bel Canto ref1000's to drive at first Apogee and later Avangarde Trios in their system, with a high degree of satisfaction. The fact that this amp could drive two such radically different speaker designs at two ends of the spectrum to a high degree of satisfaction was one factor in my deciding to go that way, though I sprung for the more costly mkiis mainly as a result of their more tube pre-amp friendly specs and additional power supply refinements.

I may have said this earlier (can't recall) but the move to this amp has put my ystem in the same league at least with the best systems I have heard, and conquering playback of classical music to that level was the final and toughest
barrier to break through.

"a great class D amp requires great everything else"

I have no data points to weigh in on this in that the class D amp was the last upgrade I did once I felt everything else was in order.

My gut feel is that the Bel Canto Ref1000mkii will not be the bottleneck in most any system that a high power, high current, high damping factor SS amp is suited for, so at that point other weaknesses might be exposed if present.

Ironically in addition to classical music, modern "loudness wars" more pop oriented CDs are the other type that have benefited most from the Bel canto ref1000mkii introduction into my system. These CDs will expose the limits of an underpowered or poorly matched amp/speaker pair IMHO. With the proper muscle behind it, one can enjoy the things that these recordings do have to offer without having to lament about shortcomings which may be at least partially due to the playback system not having enough "muscle" and authority to deliver what these kinds of CDs are capable of sounding like, for better or for worse.

"Mapman,

What are you using for speakers and pre into the Bel canto's."

Pre-amp is Audio Research sp16.

Speakers are OHM Walsh 5 Series 3, OHM 100 Series 3, OHM L and Dynaudio Contour 1.3 mkii.

All are shown in my system listing.

Each speaker pair is in a different room connected to the same core electronics (including Bel canto Ref1000 mkii mono blocks) via in-wall wiring that I had run when the house was built. I use a Niles speaker switch off the monoblocks to switch individual speaker pairs/rooms on and off as needed.

I used to have a pair of larger maggies in my system for years. The OHM Walsh 5s replaced those in my larger room. I would really like to hear those again now using the Bel Cantos. I used a 360w/ch Carver m4.0t with the Maggies back then an that was not a bad combo. The carver amp did not cut it with the OHM Walshes though. Not a lot of current and fairly low damping factor despite plenty of watts led to a comparably thin sound with those.

I'm very happy with the mhdt DACs as well. These also do no upsampling.

I do not regard up-sampling as categorically bad however. It can be hit or miss depending on how done like most things.

Is it possible the BC was revealing something in the source if the high end sounded "grainy"? Just speculating. I do not hear anything resembling grainy in my setup.

More info on what was listened to and SOn source model, ICs, etc. would add some context as GC suggests.

Muddy bass? That baffles me. Having owned Maggies prior, I'm wondering if the BC is exposing anything there? Bass dynamics on Maggies are a lot different than what I am running these days.

My house is wired with commercial grade 4 conductor moderate gauge copper stranded and vinyl shielded speaker wire, nothing fancy, and performance even with that is fine, though perhaps not quite as open and extended as the Audioquest cv6 SCs I run to one pair in the same room as the electronics.

Just speculating...

Not all BEl Cantos may work equally well with the tube pre-amp. A bad match here might account for what was heard.

Also, I believe power supply implementations are different in different BC models and could make a difference.

I can say for certain that the BC ref1000m's in my system do not match Weseixas' description.

Never heard the Threshold so cannot compare to that. I'm sure it is a fine amp in of itself as well from what I do know.

Different amps do sound different, even under optimal circumstances, so not all will take to any in particular the same even if everything is set up to integrate perfectly.

FWIW I think the 500m uses a newer generation ICE module than the 1000m and some have indicated the sound to be noticeable different so comparisons with the 1000M may not be totally apples/apples.

" Mapman, could you described your setup ."

Check out my system listing for complete info. It is up to date I believe. Pics on speaker location within rooms could use an update and I need to add pics of the BC monoblocks still.

I'm happy to answer any specific questions you might have.

"Note : (Bass) Improved over previous BC500 sound , not perfect .."

Have you ever had "perfect" bass in the listening room for reference?

This brings two things to mind.

1) bass is highly sensitive to speaker placement in room and room acoustics even with the best equipement

2) I had to adjust my speaker location somewhat when I switched in the BC amps. I find that switching amps in general typically involves at least some minor tweaking of speaker location within the room to retain best results.

I bought my BCs used and was not sure about break-in amount prior. At first, the sound was stark and bare sounding in comparison to my prior amp, a Musical Fidelity A3CR (Stereophile Class A FWIW). After a while, things settled in to a new and better reality. Part of this was my ears adjusting to the new sound, which was much tighter and cleaner and dynamic top to bottom still with very good detail. I attribute the different sound of the BCs somewhat to high damping factor (>1000 I believe is the spec). High damping is generally considered a desirable thing for my OHM speakers with the Walsh drivers. High Damping may not be the case with planars like Maggies.

I say that based partially on technical intuition but also on the fact that when I owned Maggies they worked well with a 360 w/ch carver m4.0t amp (low damping and current) whereas I had to dump the Carver to get balanced sound out of the newer OHMs.

One more note that believe the thing about the BCs that made me adjust speaker location was the deeper and consequently larger soundstage that the BC produced. The speakers needed additional room to breath and do imaging freely as a result.

It strikes me that in a tight room or in a case where the big soundstage the BCs are capable of delivering is constrained, that muddy bass and a general blurring of sound overall could be possible. The solution would be to work with speaker placement and in some cases perhaps additional room treatments, etc.

"This is far-fetched, but maybe he just did not like the Bel Canto amplifier?"

Of course that is always possible.

But, to achieve best results, first it would be beneficial to make sure things are set up well to enable a comparison of what each piece is capable of, rather than what each piece just happened to deliver.

I know what the Bel canto ref100mkii is capable of with proper setup because I have been through setting it up. I also believe that without the proper setup, teh results could be quite unimpressive.

Exceptional things usually require some special preparation in order to receive the benefit. That is definitely the case with the BC amps based on my experience.

I've never heard the Threshold, which I am certain is a fine and surely different sounding amp as well, so I cannot offer anything there.

Weseixas,

Many variables are in play.

I'll just note that I do not hear those things in my setup which is different and leave it at that.

I am wondering, tonality aside, how was the sound stage and imaging with the BC in the setup you heard?

If that was big yet still focused, then it was as should be.

If not, then I would say all bets are off in regards to overall sound quality, including tonality.

Also piano would sound different on Maggies than on anything in my system even under ideal circumstances, so I would not attempt to draw any conclusions based on that alone.

Weseixas,

Can you confirm the damping factor spec of the Threshold amp?

As I mentioned prior, I'm suspicious of the high damping factor (>1000) of the Bel Canto perhaps not being a good match for Maggies, but that is just my technical intuition talking.

I'm wondering if anybody else has any observations regarding amp damping factor and how to match that to the Maggies?

"Pianos sounded better on the threshold , especially the tonal balance vs the BC."

I was just relating that having never heard either amp with Maggies, which have atotally different sound from anything I am running currently with the Ref10000mkii, I have no basis to assess what it would sound like other than what you relate.

Also, having never heard a BC with Maggies, I am not certain going in that Class D amps would be my first choice with those either, but would be curious to hear the combo and know for sure.

One thought that occurred to me is that I consider both Magneplanar and IcePower to be way towards the low fatigue factor end of the spectrum. I would expect the combo of these two tehnologies to be the same.

That might be considered a good thing to some or too laid back and uninvolving to others, depending on personal preferences and such.

Also a touch of tube warmth somewhere up front of the amp might be another good ingredient to toss into the Class D amp soup, again depending on the nature of the system as a whole and listening preference.

I owned a Sony CD player not too long ago. The combo of the Sony sound, IcePower, and Maggies seems like one that I might expect to perhaps be somewhat towards the cold and thin end of the spectrum and perhaps could benefit from a bit more warmth somewhere in the signal chain.

"Am I wrong about either the ICE amps producing EMI/RF or about their effect on system components?"

This is something I was concerned with going in.

Yes, there is potential and it needs to be suppressed. Newer designs, including Bel Canto's, seem to do it effectively. I read it was more of a problem with some early units. It's not been an issue in my setup, which even includes a low out MC phono setup and tuner.

The ref1000mkii is dead quiet. I detect no background or any other audible noise.

EMI/RF would not effect speakers directly I believe, rather other low level eletronics and/or the power supply which would then affect the sound heard via speakers.