Jeff Rowland 201´s or Ayre V-5 X

I too am curious about the 201s.

How are they with current demanding speakers and low impedance draws?

Dave

This thread is a bit old since I posted. At the time I had Legacy Focus 20/20s which can be pretty demanding on an amp. Guidocorona - I hear what you are saying about the Macs. I did have an MC-352 for a while and it had no problem at all driving the Focus 20/20s. Now I have Legacy Whispers driven by Theta Enterprises and couldn't be happier. These amps got a horrible review in Stereophile, but are just fantastic IMO. The most notable difference is with SACD/DVD-A material. The superiority of these higher resolution discs is much more apparent now that I have the Enterprises.

Guido - I don't know the Whisper impedance curve, but they are rated at 4 ohm nominal and about 95 or 96 dB efficient, I don't remember off the top of my head.

The Stereophile review seemed to start well, but then MF began some deep criticisms mostly in comparison to his tube amps as I remember (but my memory doesn’t always serve me well). I was informed that the amps he had were brand new and unbroken-in, but you never really know. Even my amps sounded sterile and flat when they were new which matched his observations. I left them playing when I went on a trip to get the hours up. Now they are really nice. I wouldn't have believed this burn in thing if I hadn't noticed it myself.

In the end it always seems to be a question of synergy anyway, as much as that complicates matters and frustrates us.