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My Long List of Amplifiers and My Personal Review of Each!

So I have been in a long journey looking to find the best amplifiers for my martin logan montis. As you know, the match between an amplifier and speakers has to be a good "marriage" and needs to be blend exquisitely. Right now, I think I might have found the best sounding amplifier for martin logan. I have gone through approximately 34-36 amplifiers in the past 12 months. Some of these are:

Bryston ST, SST, SST2 series
NAD M25
PARASOUND HALO
PARASOUND CLASSIC
KRELL TAS
KRELL KAV 500
KRELL CHORUS
ROTEL RMB 1095
CLASSE CT 5300
CLASSE CA 2200
CLASSE CA 5200
MCINTOSH MC 205
CARY AUDIO CINEMA 7
OUTLAW AUDIO 755
LEXICON RX7
PASS LABS XA 30.8
BUTLER AUDIO 5150
ATI SIGNATURE SERIES 6005

With all that said, the amplifiers I mentioned above are the ones that in my opinion are worth mentioning. To make a long story short, there is NO 5 CHANNEL POWER AMP that sounds as good as a 3ch and 2ch amplifier combination. i have done both experiments and the truth is that YOU DO lose details and more channel separation,etc when you select a 5 channel power amplifier of any manufacturer.
My recollection of what each amp sounded like is as follows:

ATI SIGNATURE SERIES 6005 (great power and amazing soundstage. Very low noise floor, BUT this amplifiers NEEDS TO BE cranked up in order to fully enjoy it. If you like listening at low volume levels or somewhat moderate, you are wasting your time here. This amp won’t sound any different than many other brands out there at this volume. The bass is great, good highs although they are a bit bright for my taste)

NAD M25 (very smooth, powerful, but somewhat thin sounding as far as bass goes)
Bryston sst2(detailed, good soundstage, good power, but can be a little forward with certain speakers which could make them ear fatiguing at loud volumes)

Krell (fast sounding, nice bass attack, nice highs, but some detail does get lost with certain speakers)

rotel (good amp for the money, but too bright in my opinion)

cary audio (good sound overall, very musical, but it didn’t have enough oomph)

parasound halo (good detail, great bass, but it still holds back some background detail that i can hear in others)

lexicon (very laid back and smooth. huge power, but if you like more detail or crisper highs, this amp will disappoint you)

McIntosh mc205 (probably the worst multichannel amp given its price point. it was too thin sounding, had detail but lacked bass.

butler audio (good amplifier. very warm and smooth sweet sounding. i think for the money, this is a better amp than the parasound a51)

pass labs (very VERY musical with excellent bass control. You can listen to this for hours and hours without getting ear fatigue. however, it DOES NOT do well in home theater applications if all you have is a 2 channel set up for movies. The midrange gets somewhat "muddy" or very weak sounding that you find yourself trying to turn it up.

classe audio (best amplifier for multi channel applications. i simply COULDNT FIND a better multi channel amplifier PERIOD. IT has amazing smoothness, amazing power and good bass control although i would say krell has much better bass control)

Update: The reviews above were done in January 2015. Below is my newest update as of October 2016:



PS AUDIO BHK 300 MONOBLOCKS: Amazing amps. Tons of detail and really amazing midrange. the bass is amazing too, but the one thing i will say is that those of you with speakers efficiency of 87db and below you will not have all the "loudness" that you may want from time to time. These amps go into protection mode when using a speaker such as the Salon, but only at very loud levels. Maybe 97db and above. If you don’t listen to extreme crazy levels, these amps will please you in every way.

Plinius Odeon 7 channel amp: This is THE BEST multichannel amp i have ever owned. Far , but FAR SUPERIOR to any other multichannel amp i have owned. In my opinion it destroyed all of the multichannel amps i mentioned above and below. The Odeon is an amp that is in a different tier group and it is in a league of its own. Amazing bass, treble and it made my center channel sound more articulate than ever before. The voices where never scrambled with the action scenes. It just separated everything very nicely.

Theta Dreadnaught D: Good detailed amp. Looks very elegant, has a pleasant sound, but i found it a tad too bright for my taste. I thought it was also somewhat "thin" sounding lacking body to the music. could be that it is because it is class d?

Krell Duo 300: Good amp. Nice and detailed with enough power to handle most speakers out there. I found that it does have a very nice "3d" sound through my electrostatics. Nothing to fault here on this amp.
Mark Levinson 532H: Great 2 channel amp. Lots of detail, amazing midrange which is what Mark Levinson is known for. It sounds very holographic and will please those of you looking for more detail and a better midrange. As far as bass, it is there, but it is not going to give you the slam of a pass labs 350.5 or JC1s for example. It is great for those that appreciate classical music, instrumental, etc, but not those of you who love tons of deep bass.

 It is articulate sounding too
Krell 7200: Plenty of detail and enough power for most people. i found that my rear speakers contained more information after installed this amp. One thing that i hated is that you must use xlr cables with this amp or else you lose most of its sound performance when using RCA’s.

Krell 402e: Great amp. Very powerful and will handle any speaker you wish. Power is incredible and with great detail. That said, i didn’t get all the bass that most reviewers mentioned. I thought it was "ok" in regards to bass. It was there, but it didn’t slam me to my listening chair.

Bryston 4B3: Good amp with a complete sound. I think this amp is more laid back than the SST2 version. I think those of you who found the SST2 version of this amp a little too forward with your speakers will definitely benefit from this amp’s warmth. Bryston has gone towards the "warm" side in my opinion with their new SST3 series. As always, they are built like tanks. I wouldn’t call this amp tube-like, but rather closer to what the classe audio delta 2 series sound like which is on the warm side of things.

Parasound JC1s: Good powerful amps. Amazing low end punch (far superior bass than the 402e). This amp is the amp that i consider complete from top to bottom in regards to sound. Nothing is lacking other than perhaps a nicer chassis. Parasound needs to rework their external appearance when they introduce new amps. This amp would sell much more if it had a revised external appearance because the sound is a great bang for the money. It made my 800 Nautilus scream and slam. Again, amazing low end punch.

Simaudio W7: Good detailed amp. This amp reminds me a lot of the Mark Levinson 532h. Great detail and very articulate. I think this amp will go well with bookshelves that are ported in order to compensate for what it lacks when it comes to the bass. That doesn’t mean it has no bass, but when it is no Parasound JC1 either.
Pass labs 350.5: Wow, where do i begin? maybe my first time around with the xa30.8 wasn’t as special as it was with this monster 350.5. It is just SPECTACULAR sounding with my electrostatics. The bass was THE BEST BASS i have ever heard from ANY amp period. The only amp that comes close would be the jC1s. It made me check my settings to make sure the bass was not boosted and kept making my jaw drop each time i heard it. It totally destroyed the krell 402e in every regard. The krell sounded too "flat" when compared to this amp. This amp had amazing mirange with great detail up top. In my opinion, this amp is the best bang for the money. i loved this amp so much that i ended up buying the amp that follows below.

Pass labs 250.8: What can i say here. This is THE BEST STEREO AMP i have ever heard. This amp destroys all the amps i have listed above today to include the pass labs 350.5. It is a refined 350.5 amp. It has more 3d sound which is something the 350.5 lacked. It has a level of detail that i really have never experienced before and the bass was amazing as well. I really thought it was the most complete power amplifier i have ever heard HANDS DOWN. To me, this is a benchmark of an amplifier. This is the amp that others should be judged by. NOTHING is lacking and right now it is the #1 amplifier that i have ever owned.

My current amps are Mcintosh MC601s: i decided to give these 601s a try and they don’t disappoint. They have great detail, HUGE soundstage, MASSIVE power and great midrange/highs. The bass is great, but it is no pass labs 250.8 or 350.5. As far as looks, these are the best looking amps i have ever owned. No contest there. i gotta be honest with you all, i never bought mcintosh monos before because i wasn’t really "wowed" by the mc452, but it could have been also because at that time i was using a processor as a preamp which i no longer do. Today, i own the Mcintosh C1100 2 chassis tube preamp which sounds unbelievable. All the amps i just described above have been amps that i auditioned with the C1100 as a preamp. The MC601s sound great without a doubt, but i will say that if you are looking for THE BEST sound for the money, these would not be it. However, Mcintosh remains UNMATCHED when it comes to looks and also resale value. Every other amp above depreciates much faster than Mcintosh.

That said, my future purchase (when i can find a steal of a deal) will be the Pass labs 350.8. I am tempted to make a preliminary statement which is that i feel this amp could be THE BEST stereo amp under 30k dollars. Again, i will be able to say more and confirm once i own it. I hope this update can help you all in your buying decisions!


jays_audio_lab

Showing 3 responses by gbmcleod

gbmcleod
521 posts
 
I would only ask how long someone lived with amps they are reviewing. As a once-reviewer for The Absolute Sound, I would have to live with an amp for several months, and in at least two systems, before I would offer an authoritative review about them (and perhaps the original poster did that), which is why I’m asking how long he lived with them after warm up period (some amps take weeks if they are new, to come into their own). 36 amps in 12 months? I really have to question that since that is 3 amps per month. Myself, I couldn’t review 1 amp in a month. This does need to be said, I’m afraid, regardless of what anyone wishes to think. When I reviewed, reviewers would even question each other about setup, were there static issues, was the system in perfect order (especially if we disagreed with our colleagues main review).

I would also want to know - as was required of TAS (in the old days, before 2003, when it all changed: no intercommentary system) what the rest of the system was. Context is everything and we must all consider that even professional reviewers make mistakes when evaluating components over a 3 month period. I’d take a review of 10 amps with a have-to-try-it-for-myself grain of salt after my residence as a reviewer. But it is always helpful to have IMPRESSIONS of one person’s experience, although my experience with say, Nordost Valhalla clashed with Harry Pearson’s to the point where he wrote me hate notes. (He had an ego of VERY big proportions). I said they were lean, he said they were not. He was wrong, as he acknowledged when Nordost updated the line to Version 2, and Harry wrote in the magazine that he realized the original version was "threadbare." (He never apologized to me directly, though. Too big an ego for that. Harry was exceedingly poor at saying the two words everyone should be able to say: "I’m sorry.")
So, even the pros can miss the boat.
gbmcleod
521 posts
 
thezaks:

"Muscular sounding" usually means that the range between the mid bass and the midrange (60-400hZ) are quite noticeable in "weight." In other words, Frank Sinatra was a tenor, but so was Pavarotti. Pavarotti’s voice would be termed "muscular" because of the power he was able to project. The same could NOT be said of Sinatra’s voice.

Some people play a certain type of music. Rap (of which i have mostly 90s rap) would certainly want more of the "Pavarotti" power behind it, not the "Frank Sinatra" tone behind it. On the other hand, if one were singing "September Song" (Nat King Cole), "muscular" is an absolute waste of time. One wants shadings, delicacy, poignancy.

The original Rowland Research Coherence I (circa 1985) would fit the definition for "muscular." It was, from the lower midrange down, absolutely linear. In fact, that was WHY one felt the instruments were "in the room" with you ("they are here vs. you are there"). The Rowland emphasized the lower fundamentals of instruments, but not the upper midrange and highs. That’s why Dave Wilson used it in designing the WATTS. Where the original (1985) WATTS were weak (the lower midrange down), the Rowland compensated. I had the original Series I WATTS (and eventually the Puppies). I was an occasional visitor in Dave’s workshop when he was in Novato, California 5 or 6 times (he set up my Goldmund turntables) and heard the WATTS in Wilson’s giant room (more of a storage room) before the Puppy was built to make them more full-range. The Puppy came out in 1988. And I owned a Coherence at the same time I owned an Audio Research SP-11, so I heard both at the same time.

Point being, muscular’s great for certain types of music. And at one time, I was a major fan of the Rowland. Eventually, though, I wanted more harmonic information in my classical music - and the Rowland could most assuredly NOT do that.

It’s a killer effect, though, on a top preamp or amp! (Of course, you need both the preamp AND the amp together to create ultimate "muscularity").

That’s why reviews require associated components listed, something TAS fails completely at nowadays. No listening room dimensions (Harry insisted on that once every year). They also fail to tell what the reviewer’s subjective taste is in music ("I don’t care that much about the low bass, but I insist on a linear mid bass, upper bass and lower midrange, since my tastes run to male singers, and brass instruments"). That kind of thing, so you know which reviewer’s subjective tastes match your own. And you can ignore other reviewers who might listen mostly to violin sonatas and therefore, value the upper midrange and treble frequencies.

It’s all in what one likes. But live music is still the sina qua non for assessments. Otherwise, you’re just comparing reproduced music to other reproduced music, so there’s no "reality" there by which an absolute (and objective, compared to live music) assessment can be made. Just "I like this the best."
gbmcleod
521 posts
 
I just saw viber6’s post about Enid Lumley.

I learned a great deal from Enid and her columns. Things that I see others do not observe nor practice. For example, having a power cord directly on top of a speaker cable is asking for trouble. ASKING FOR IT. OH, does that bring back a memory. Have I got a story for you!!

Back in 1994, when I was writing for TAS, a gentleman in Mill Valley invited some people to his home. He was thinking of starting a new magazine. So: the luminaries, some visiting from the East Coast:

Sallie Reynolds, TAS Executive Editor
Tom Miller, prominent TAS reviewer
Richard Brown - Bel amps designer
and a couple of people who’d prefer - to this day - to remain unmentioned.

The system: Wilson Grand Slamms (THE hot new speaker of the day)
Rockport Sirius Turntable, equipped with Van den Hul Grasshopper
Jadis JP-80 preamp
Bel 1001 amps (2 of them, I think)
Transparent Reference speaker cable and interconnects

Power cords were NOT an industry at this point. Just the manufacturer supplied cords. (Can you imagine we actually listened to components with ordinary power cords. MERCY!)

An Elvis Presley cut was played from one of his albums with engineered by the legendary Bill Porter.

Sounded great - to everyone else. Me? I heard a "burr" (slight edginess) throughout the cut.

So, after the song ended, I politely asked if I could move one thing. The host was very gracious and said yes. I walked over to his wall, pulled a book off of it, and, standing it upright, put the speaker cable ON TOP OF THE BOOK. It had previously been laying DIRECTLY on top of the power cord.

I asked for the cut to be replayed. It was. At the end of the cut...SILENCE in the room.

Sallie Reynolds: "WHAT DID YOU DO? The upper midrange grit is GONE! I thought it was on the record!"
ME: Um, I just removed the speaker cable from sitting right on top of the power cord.
People in the room: "WOW"
Even Dick Brown looked...startled.
Tom Miller to me "Showoff." (We were both reviewing the Audio Artistry Dvorak speakers. Him: Main Review. Me: Commentary.)

I just shrugged. "It wasn’t me. This is what Enid has been insisting on in her columns. DON’T YOU GUYS EVER READ HER COLUMNS?!?!? It’s YOUR magazine!"

Motto: DO as Edith COMMANDS!!

Never, EVER have your power cords lying on top of your speaker cable or interconnects. EVER. and don’t have them (the power cords) close to them if you can help it. Tie them up. TAPE THEM to something, but keep them away from the power cords or you will get bleed thru and EMF, EMI, EM something (joking) and your music WILL suffer. I guarantee it. Now, you may not hear it, but all that means your system is not ideally setup somewhere in there. OR. OR. As a very famous designer said: "Either that or you don’t know how to listen to music critically." I forget who it was. I thought it was Ivor Tiefenbrun, but no. His statement was: "If you haven’t actually heard it, you DON’T have an opinion." So, some other legendary designer said that. I’d try to remember, but at 70, I forget things...

And turn off the damn microwaves, even if you have dedicated circuits. I have 7 dedicated circuits, and I can ALWAYS tell if I’ve let the microwave on: high bells and triangles have a slightly tizzy sound to them and the overtones die out prematurely.) The only time that was an exception was when I had my sound system in the basement sound room. Who knows, maybe RFI or EM doesn’t travel downwards. But that was the ONLY time it was like that. And that was after I moved back to Connecticut in 2002.

When had I lived in San Francisco (’75-2002), I was thinking of something Enid had written about radio frequency and I remembered, one day, out of the blue, "Hmmm...what if I turn off the microwave? Enid says that makes a difference." Damned if she wasn’t right - and I had SOTA components:

Versa Dynamics 2.3, then "the best turntable in the world."

Goldmund Mimesis 9 "Wanna hear the floorboards creak, the sidewalls when the piano sound bounces off it and heads toward the other wall?"
Convergent CAT SL-1 Reference "There’s no preamp like the sound of NO PREAMP"

WATT/Puppies "I’m as resolving as ANY electrostatic on the Planet!"

Avalon Ascents ("Wanna hear "continuousness" for the FIRST TIME?? Take a gander at me! I sound absolutely live, like 25 speed Kodachrome. NO GRAIN WHATSOEVER. It’s OPEN WINDOW TIME ON THE OPEN PRAIRIE!!"

Infinity IRS "NOBODY IS BETTER THAN ME. NO.BODY."

Room: Edwardian, built in 1912. Plaster walls. 10’ high, 15’ wide, 27’ long. ("Oh, your room is kind of like Harry’s old room," as the venerable Dr. Robert E. Greene said to me as he dropped by for a visit).
In other words, very solid walls (no drywall BOOM! here)! Built over a garage on Potrero Hill in San Francisco. Translation: Carved-out-of-rock-solid-floor. Low bass sounded like a 5.0 earthquake! In other words: ROCK THIS BUILDING. (The only time the landlord came down and asked: "Um, what’s that shaking the house?" Me: Oh, sorry, that’s the organ note on Also Sprach Zarathustra. "THAT’S A STEREO SYTEM? I thought it was an earthquake, but it only lasted 10 seconds." Me: "Nope, just the organ note on Also Sprach Zarathustra. You know that recording, right?" Landlord: " Dear Lord! I’ve never head that kind of sound before." Me: "Um, I’ll turn it down." HIM: "NO! TURN IT UP! That was FANTASTIC!!!" (he was 72, and still remembered when music was all tubed and analogue.

So: ideal setup to test ALL of Enid’s proclamations: keep the speaker cable OFF the floor. No power cords on top of speaker cable. All power cords at 90 degrees to signal cables and at least 4" away from each other.
This woman KNEW what she was talking about.
It was GROOVY, man!!!
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