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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!


128x128jays_audio_lab
jays_audio_lab's avatar
jays_audio_lab OP
5,381 posts
 
@kstaken.

Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate and respect your input here since you own both pieces so I have no reason to doubt your findings. I will have to agree that the luxman gear isn’t totally transparent because it sounds awesome with everything you throw at it which we all know isn’t the case with most recordings. That said , the same could be said for cardas clear beyond xlr. They make things sound more musical and engaging which ends up in long listening sessions. I think the key here is what are we trying to do ? Do we want to listen for long hours and enjoy the presentation the way the artist wanted us to or the way the manufacturer of the components wants ? It comes down to picking "your poison " because at the end of the day you have to decide what you want. I tried components that were neutral and I couldn’t wait to get off the couch. Magico is suposed to be a neutral speaker that measures extremely well on the bench, but does this mean you’ll end up listening until 3am? Some say that they are cold, soul-less speakers that don’t make you tap your feet.
For me it is really about the long listening sessions. It is about having a system that makes me look forward to come home and be totally in love with what it does. I have an acquaintance that wants nothing but the facts from the components and that’s fine but often times I noticed that I can’t sit next to him for long hours because I lose interest in the presentation.
I can also think of it in terms of cars. I would love to own a Dodge Viper ACR so I can drive it on the weekends and feel the incredible connection to the road, the pure raw power , the lack of air conditioning that makes me feel closer to a real race car. However, do I want to drive that car to Orlando to go to Disney for a 6 hour round trip? Most likely i would do it once and that’s it but I’m sure the sweating, my head hurting from the exhaust notes and having to drive with the windows down plus the lack of comfort would make me not want to do it again. Yes it’s probably an insane ride but it is for quick trips.
Audio is really no different.
Now, the hard thing to do is to have a combination of both; a system with transparency but with musicality. Thats the hardest thing to have in the right proportions and perhaps what I am after. 
kstaken
16 posts
 
For me there is a difference between neutral and transparent. Neutral is necessary but not sufficient for transparency. I've heard many components that are considered neutral that don't even come close to being transparent. Neutral is just about frequency response while transparency requires clean frequency response plus immense resolution, dynamics and an absence of noise that many so called neutral components just don't have. 

This Benchmark stuff has been completely surprising to me, at first I was highly skeptical that it could really be that good but I bought an AHB2 for the hell of it since it's not that expensive and once it hit my system the Luxman M900U saw almost no further usage. The Benchmark was vastly superior based on what I look for in audio. For me, nothing is as engaging as actual transparency to the recording and being able to dig so deep into recordings keeps me glued to the listening chair to an unhealthy degree. 

It's definitely preference though as the person that ended up with my M900U bought a used AHB2, tried it, preferred the M900U and sold the AHB2 to me so I could run two as monos. Shrug.

wflm
28 posts
 
Further on the import of the clock in a Vivaldi stack

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/state-of-the-art-digital.29583/post-616599
riaa_award_collectors_on_facebook's avatar
riaa_award_collectors_on_facebook
979 posts
 

Obviously Kstaken doesn’t listen to Classic Rock or other poorly recorded music. Must be a Pipe and Slippers kinda guy musically speaking...which is fine. To each his own.

I have my suspicions that Viber either cloned himself or changed his Audiogon name.

Wflm.....that Vivaldi thread is 5 - 6 years old.

I am not telling anybody what to buy. I will tell anybody if you don't maximize the capabilities of what you already have (within reason) your just spinning your wheels/chasing your tail.

kren0006
1,859 posts
 
I thought the Kstaken review was very well done. Honest, not preachy, admissive of likely a minority opinion but still true and committed to it, and most importantly borne of an actual head to head based on real (not imagined or theorized) ownership. Plus well written, which I appreciate.

Sounds like that benchmark could hit the mark for a segment of consumers and punches above its class. Great to know even if main thrust of thread is to higher end offerings.

No way that was Viber rechristened as Kstacken, not possible, and I trust Kstacken won’t post pages every fifth post hereafter beating us over the head if we don’t agree with his/her opinion. For the record, that was to draw a comparison; I hope Kstacken does post a lot more.

Viber is on a little break but I’m sure he’ll be back ... Although even in his absence he was dismissively backhanded by WC again just now for being a streetcorner pusher of Rane, GT, .... That’s probably not fair to GT but still made me chuckle......ah, good times....
If we’re taking requests, I’m still hoping for Alexx and top shelf ARC amp/pre but I’m patient and I think WC will eventually pass thru that town ....
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