Jeff Rowland 302 or Conrad Johnson Premier 350

As both are made by respected manufacturers that have been around for many years, one would think that the Rowland is more amp, as you do tend to get what you pay for in life and the Rowland is significantly more expensive than the c-j. What you should get for the extra money is, among other things, better parts quality and a better power supply, which typically (but not necessarily) translates into better sound quality.

As for quality of construction, my guess, based upon personal experience, is that the Rowland will have better build quality (Jeff's expensive gear always has incredible build quality), but again, maybe not.

If it matters to you, the Rowland amp, being designed around the ICe module, will burn significantly less electricity than the c-j.

In any event, at those price points, both amps are going to be excellent products. Despite the price differential, the c-j may prove to be the better sounding amp in your system, as it always comes down to system synergy. We have to assume, if you are putting such an expensive amp into your system, that the rest of your system is high quality as well, meaning that it will clearly allow you to hear even subtle differences among components -- this is all the more reason for you to demo the two amps in your own system to resolve the synergy issue (i.e., it would be foolish to make a purchase decision based upon what other people tell you about these components).

To say the obvious, make certain that you demo amps that are fully broken in (too many dealers do not bother to break in amps).

Finally, there are a number of other amps out there in the same approximate price range that will be competitive sonically (although perhaps not competitive from the perspective of build quality or reputation of the company for reliability -- a lot of the people making high-end gear are flaky and may not be there if your amp breaks).

Good luck.

Thf:

In my opinion, the Lamms hybrids are very competitive with other top-shelf solid-state amps, the downsides being a slightly dark character that requires a bit of system matching or tube rolling, they produce a lot of heat, and I think they are ugly. They are extremely well-made and Lamm has a reputation for supporting its products. I can only guess how they sound when partnered with your ARC Reference preamp (probably pretty good -- the ARC Reference preamps are reputed to be sunny and open sounding). A final comment about the Lamms: while they are very good, my understanding is that both Lamm's hybrid and tube amps are a bit overrated, and that the honey of the Lamm line is Vladimir's $14K preamp.

I do not know about the availability of these products where you live in Asia, but if you are opening up your list of contenders, I would mention the CAT JL-2 stereo or JL-3 mono tube amps. They are incredibly well-built, will man-handle any solid-state amp you are likely to consider and would likely be exquisite with Extremas. But if your choice is limited to the Rowland, the c-j, and the Lamms, I would go with Rowland -- his stuff sounds and looks really good, it won't break, and if it does break, Rowland will likely be around to fix it (PS - I use a Rowland Coherence II preamp and Cadence phono stage in my main system, and used to own Rowland Model 6 monos w/ batteries that worked really well with an ARC LS-3 solid-state preamp in my second system).