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

Speakers have a lot to do with the need for a preamp... most dacs are amazing but when you have wicked loads of .5 ohms and efficiency of less than 85db, a dac won’t open up the sound wall to wall. The amps need a preamp to force them to push and most dacs simply don’t have it. Even with all the dacs I’ve owned, I still haven’t heard the huge wide sound that some preamps provide. 

Try again.  

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/thoughts-on-cartridge-loading-with-a-sut 

pokey77,
If you want the Constellation sound and can't afford the Virgo/Centaur, the cheapest Inspiration line probably gives the approximate sound quality.  This is what WC heard with a ML stat at Axpona in April, which impressed him.  As I said before, the tech at Constellation told me that the basic circuitry of the Inspiration is the same as the bigger models.  The building block of all models is the same 125 W module.  Also, Irv Gross, the sales guy at Connie, told John Atkinson that the major difference between the Inspiration and the bigger models is power and physical weight.  The Inspiration stereo at retail of $11K is often discounted by Audio Advisor.  It is no slouch at 200W into 8, 400W into 4.

WC,
True, about the speakers determining need for a preamp.  Mrdecibel's efficient Klipsch horns are plenty dynamic, so he doesn't need the additional gain and enjoys the better purity of his passive volume controller.   In my case with my inefficient stats, I have enough gain without preamp for my music, so I enjoy the extra clarity without the preamp.  I did try preamps, even if not at the level of yours.  Although I briefly enjoyed the extra dynamics and volume, the clarity suffered to the point where that became the priority as I got rid of the preamp.

Alright guys,
Decisions, decisions. Today is somewhat difficult for me because I had to make a decision which was to sell either my Rowland or constellation set up. After doing a lot of thinking, analyzing the incurred costs of my dedicated room which simply keep rising as well as looking at the used market, I’ve decided to part ways with the best system i have owned:
the constellation centaur 2 Monos and Virgo 3 preamp. It was hard to decide to do this but I think sometimes it’s all about timing in life and being able to go with the flow. My gut says to keep the constellation gear and my brain says to part ways with it right now and buy it again later down the road. For now, I will continue the journey with my Rowland set up and plan to do my first video with it once the room is ready in about 4 weeks.
RIP constellation— you will be dearly missed. The show must go on !

Coming up: my assessment of the Rowland 925s with Corus preamp, PSU Unit And esoteric k1
i will also give my opinion on the DCS Vivaldi vs esoteric k1.

WC,
Cheer up.  The real SOTA shoot out will be Rowland vs Merrill, so you will be able to do that side by side, with SOTA sources like DCS and Esoteric.  The show is getting better and better.  I am following Mike Mivera, who has the new Purifi class D module from Bruno Putzeys, and is mating it to his custom input buffer stages.  This may be SOTA for an el cheapo price, but it will take at least another 6 months to find out.  Your review of the Merrill vs Rowland will set a benchmark standard for all comparisons.

WC,

The journey continues, as it must for you (to our great pleasure watching and learning from your travels).

The price of this is letting some really great components go to others to enjoy.

No one can afford to keep the many killer pieces you have had the pleasure of auditioning.

Like many I suspect, yours is one of the very FEW reviews I trust implicitly as it is all on your own dime for the most part.

Keep on Rockin

Rick

@viber6

I had to go back to my comments to see why you might think that I want Constellation sound but can't afford it. I was specific in saying I'd like to hear Constellation, along with Soulution, but I do not want to purchase it. I have very fine equipment but am not here to talk about it, I'm here to follow WC.

This is a tough crowd.  Sheesh. 

I figured my attempt to be humorous would get deleted but that was fast.  I have had private requests to resurrect that post which I may do on another thread although I will revise it so that it is hopefully offensive to no one.  It was designed to poke fun at the typical audiophile (myself included).  It is indeed funny to see the lengths that audiophiles will go to for the sake of musical enjoyment and WCSS's journey is as extreme an example as any.  Nonetheless, it has been enjoyable to tune in every so often when I have found the time. 

Generally, when watching a movie, we're all rooting for the hero to "get the girl" at the end but with regards to WCSS's journey, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be rooting for since I don't know where WCSS is going with this.  It seems the goal isn't for WCSS to find his end-game setup but just to keep the thread going as long as possible and try as much gear as possible.  If this is the case, then so be it.  Comparative evaluations are valuable and WCSS's blunt honesty has been refreshing to read.

I'd like to apologize to Viber6 as I meant no offense (although he makes himself an easy target, lol).  I actually have much in common with his musical preferences (at least 75 percent of what I listen to is large orchestral or chamber music) although our priorities differ (and that's ok).  It has been said that the most difficult thing for an electronic audio system to convincingly portray is an unamplified human voice.  In any situation, if you close your eyes, you ALWAYS know when you're listening to a live human voice versus a recorded one.  Not far behind is an unamplified acoustical instrument and so unamplified acoustical performances are the most difficult types of music for an electronic audio system to faithfully reproduce.  If I listened to Adele or ColdPlay all day long (and I do enjoy listening to this music), I know I could get by with a much simpler setup and would probably have very satisfyingly reached my personal end game long ago.

Having said that, it's important for each of us to understand our priorities as we embark on our individual audio journeys since no one can have it all.  The ideal amplifier would have infinite open loop gain, infinite input impedance, zero output impedance, infinite bandwidth, and zero offset voltage.  Such an amplifier would be truly transparent (i.e. invisible) but unfortunately, such an amplifier doesn't exist.  Likewise, an ideal cable would have zero resistance, zero inductance, and zero capacitance which would make it completely transparent and while superconductors approach this ideal, such cables do not exist in the audio world.  Consequently, audio at any level is fraught with compromise and so audio wisdom is about knowing which compromises to value over others and this is a very personal thing.  In my case, my priorities are very simply transparency and resolution.   

I prefer to evaluate amps (and other gear) like the Olympics evaluates figure skaters.  Each amp gets a "technical performance" score which includes all the performance characteristics that are generally objectifiable.  Speed, dynamics, transient response, bass control, treble extension, midrange clarity...you name it.  With regards to any one of these individual qualities such as speed or transient response, most of us can agree when we hear something that is fast or agile.  If you use specific portions (10-15 seconds) of select tracks that you know well, it becomes fairly easy to test for these qualities even at audio shows under suboptimal conditions. 

Like in figure skating, each amp also gets an "artistic" score and this can be more difficult to assess and ultimately, may be the more important score.  This is obviously a more subjective quality and reflects our preferred proportions of all of an amp's qualities.  This can take time to assess and, in my opinion, is the reason to try and bring the amp home so that you can hear it in your system.  This is where "musicality" fits in although musicality means different things to different people which is why I am more inclined to know what WCSS means when he says his Constellation has excellent bass control than when he says that the Luxman sounds "musical" or "organic" or "natural."  One man's "warm" is another man's "neutral."

My musical journey is nowhere as extensive as WCSS's but we share some things in common.  In 2017, I owned a pair of Martin Logan Renaissance 15A hybrid electrostats.  They were beautiful sounding and I enjoyed them but typical of line source speakers, they cast a giant ambient sound stage but they focused poorly.  No matter how I positioned them in my room, the image always seemed unnaturally tall and overly diffuse.  The transients were too soft for my liking and so I found myself spending tons of time, energy and resources trying to get them to image more succinctly.  As I had easy access to Pass Labs gear, I went through a gamut of their gear (INT-60, INT-250, XA100.8, XA200.8, and X350.8) although I never tried anything in their xS line in my home.  While Pass renders a beautifully rich tone with very satisfying bass weight, I found bass to be bloated and not well controlled and transients to sound too slow and soft for my liking and this is not something you realize until you start doing side by side A/B comparisons.  Nonetheless, I found that a soft amp did not do favors for a soft sounding speaker, at least for my tastes.  Transparency was not very good either.  One test I have for transparency is upstream cabling and components.  In my most transparent setup, if I change USB cables, it's very easy to hear differences and often, these differences are quite stark.  When WCSS says he hears a greater difference between DACs with the Rowland than with the Constellation, I already know which amp I would prefer.  When I had Pass Labs gear in my room, I could change cables, DACs, servers, etc., and hear differences, but they were considerably more subtle.  On the one hand, with Pass, you could get away with less than stellar upstream gear and still get beautiful sound but for someone who values transparency and resolution, this just drove me nuts since I knew that a Mac Mini should not sound as good as a purpose-built server.  Unfortunately, I had the same experience with McIntosh gear. 

I also tried the Merrill Thors and very briefly the Veritas and while these amps sounded "clear" and "accurate" and were better resolved than the previous amps, they lacked the dimensionality of the very best amps that I auditioned and sounded flat and almost too damped where decays didn't linger as long as they should have.  My experience was similar with Devialet but also with a pair of Kii Three speakers I had in house.  To date, I have not tried anything from Rowland or Bel Canto but thus far, class D has not been my preference.

I then moved on to the Luxman M-900U/C-900U and I found it to have nearly the same harmonic richness as Pass but considerably greater performance resulting in greater transparency and resolution.  This was the first time I heard my Martin Logans really come to life.  I found even better transparency and resolution from D'Agostino, Soulution, and CH Precision and while I could have lived happily with any of these amps driving the Renaissance 15As, I found the best synergy with a pair of CH Precision M1 monoblocks.  I think CH Precision and electrostats are a match made in heaven.

Ultimately, I came to realize that line source speakers aren't for me.  From my Renaissance 15As to a good friend's Sound Labs to my brother's Maggies and most recently, with the Alsyvox Caravaggios that were playing in Munich 2 months ago, I struggled with an overly diffuse image and soft transients.  I understand the appeal and love how you can recreate the ambience of Carnegie Hall with these kinds of speakers but they're just not for me. 

And so I switched back to point source speakers and this time to stay.  I had previously owned romantic sounding Sonus Fabers and I already owned single-driver, crossover-less Voxativs in my other listening room so I thought I might like Magicos in my large listening room to complement the Voxativs.  I even took the Magico tour in Hayward, California and was thoroughly impressed by the tech that goes into these speakers.  I auditioned a pair of S5 Mk2s in my home but preferred the subtle sweetness brought forth by the M3s.  I tried Devialet with the M3s and I liked the dynamics but the pairing didn't sound natural to my ears and I felt the DAC used in the Devialet could be more resolving.  The M3s powered by a Constellation Inspiration Stereo amp sounded underpowered but that was the best Constellation I could get my hands on at the time.  I was very impressed with a D'Agostino Momentum Integrated driving the M3s but the best that I heard the M3s sound was with a Soulution 711 stereo amp and 725 preamp.  I'm sure the 701 monoblocks would have been even better but I did not have access to these amps.  Ultimately, however, I struggled with bass output from the M3s that I felt was too weak for my large room (I didn't have subs at the time) and a presentation that still sounded a touch too clinical for my tastes.  

From the Magicos, I decided to try Wilsons and to cut to the chase, I have stopped looking.  If I could afford them, I would buy a pair of Wilson WAMM Master Chronosonics and feel it would be money well spent because I have yet to hear Mahler's 8th so convincingly portrayed to scale than by these speakers powered by a pair of CH Precision M1.5 monoblocks.  Instead, I have settled on the Alexia 2s and while they're not WAMMs, they have near the balance of transparency, resolution, and naturalness of the WAMMs that I find so appealing but at a much more affordable price point.

It should come as no surprise that while a great amp will always be a great amp, the best amp for one speaker is often not the best amp for another speaker and that is the whole point of this post.  Beyond transparency and resolution, there is synergy to consider and synergy or lack thereof is difficult to predict.  With the Alexias, I tried Pass Labs once again (X350.8 with XP-22 preamp) and it was not a great pairing.  Same thing with a pair of McIntosh MC611s.  Just too slow.  I know the Luxman L-509X has received much love on this thread and so I bought one to try out and all I can say is don't waste your money on this intregated.  It cannot do the Alexias justice.  The Luxman C-900U/M-900U is an excellent combo with the Alexias and I actually prefer the M-900U in stereo form as opposed to monoblock form because I hear better subtlety and nuance with the stereo version, especially at low volumes.  I thought the Hegel H30 fronted by a Soulution 520 preamp was very good.  Even better is the Soulution 511/520 that I currently have in house but the very best pairing I have heard with my Alexias thus far have been the VTL Siegfried II monoblocks with 7.5 III preamp, D'Agostino Momentum Integrated (I have not yet tried D'Agostino separates), and CH Precision L1/M1 monoblocks.  As previously stated, I have not tried anything from Rowland but I do have a Merrill Audio Christine and Element 114 coming my way shortly.  

As for active preamps, I agree with WCSS on this one.  As someone who values transparency, to insert another gain stage to the signal path is a step in the wrong direction but for certain speakers, I find them to be necessary evils especially since I only have one digital source and I don't spin vinyl.  If you notice that with various manufacturers, whether it be VTL or Soulution, as you go up their line of preamps, what you typically gain is transparency.  Active preamps can be very transparent but unfortunately, this transparency can be very expensive.

I apologize to WCSS for hijacking his thread with such a long post but not to worry, this will probably be my only post here (unless it gets deleted again, lol).  Hopefully, the contribution is helpful.

Awesome journey Viber7. Great writing. I was there picturing your amp and speaker choices.


The Wilson Alexia 2s is like a Tiger waiting to be tamed. Good Luck. CH Precision OMG. I just a poor boy listening to my Vintage Krells. Can't wait to hear future endeavors with the Wilsons.

Excellent post viber7. It was well documented and loved the way you “crawled” through different gear until you found what you were looking for. 
As far as the 15a, they are great speakers and do so much right for the money. Yes I know they lack dynamics and I can see why you said they didn’t image well. You actually found gear that sounded awesome with them and that’s the journey I’ve been through as well with my Neoliths. Remember, the Neolith IS THE SPEAKER that the rest of the Logan models aren’t which is a dynamic panel, huge imagining and tons of air. They capture what the smaller siblings can’t. 
I was listening to CH precision last Friday and it didn’t move me for some reason. I felt it sounded sterile, cold, analytical like boulder amplifiers. Maybe it was the weird speakers? As a matter of fact I have a great opportunity to get the C1 ch dac for a good deal but it just didn’t convince me when I heard it. Again, I don’t know what it was. 
Luxman has a special place in my world and it will always be my go to brand if I decided to “downsize” at some point. Constellation remains imaging champ in my book. Rowland is awesome as well but it can be somewhat “picky” with the rest of your gear. I will articulate more on this at a later time. 
Lastly, yes it’s about the synergy and just because one amp sounds good doesn’t mean it will sound just as good with another speaker. I’ve had the Neoliths for 8 months now and they keep impressing me. 
Outside of that, they are one impressive looking speaker that keeps people wondering what they are. Once my room is done, I suspect that each time someone enters the room their eyes will immediately go to the Neolith. It’s just that type of speaker and now that I’ve been dialing things they are far better sounding than when I first got them. 
Rowland will continue to be with me and for now I’m not sure what will I try next in the near future. I’d love to try a full gryphon front end but that is a hard acquisition for me. I also want to try soulution or a full agostino front end, but who knows when that will be. 

@Viber7

Excellent post. Thanks for sharing your significant firsthand experience with us. It is much appreciated.

whitecamaro, et al

I read on the first page where you said you simply put the amps in the rack and listen

I urge everyone to try the Machina Dynamica cryoed springs (his New Dark Matter rocks as well), which isolates vibration in 3 dimensions. I have tried a lot of exotic vibration control devices, but these are amazing and very inexpensive. I have them under everything.

When I put a new piece in I first plunk it down as you do/did, but after warm up I put springs under it: each and every time the component springs to life (npi)

viber7, 
I enjoyed your post.  We actually have similar audio preferences and experiences, and of course, musical preferences.  Thanks for all the detailed info you provided.  Sorry to repeat myself, but I have found large panels to sound bloated with less precision than smaller versions of the same.  For example, the Stax F83 was 2 stacked F81's.  Of course, the F83 had more output than the badly inefficient F81, but the F83 was more bloated and rolled off in HF.  Similar to you, I went from the huge Magneplanar Tympani 1D to the tiny Rogers LS 3/5a and loved the focus and good detail of the Rogers.  I haven't heard the huge Alsyvox Caravaggio's, but I predict the smallest Tintoretto will sound better, when I hear it in a NY dealer in a month.  The Caravaggio reminds me of my Tympani, but the essence of the design's clarity will be obtained from the Tintoretto.  The drivers are of good moderate size, which should present a realistic image suitable for most music.  I also want to hear the small Persona B, which uses all Be drivers, a real plus.  They won't present big orchestra pieces like Mahler realistically, but the clarity may let you forget about size and concentrate on the detail and accuracy of the complex music presented.

I am looking forward to your evaluation of the Merrill preamp and 114 amp.  Thanks so much.

WC, please don't forget to share your experience/opinion comparing 
vivaldi with esoteric k1.
Thanks.

WCSS,I know you like your Neoliths, but I thought I would mention that there is a pair of Wilson Audio Alexandria X-2 s2 for $49k here on the Gon. That seems like a steal for such a speaker (to add to your collection)

viber 7. Excellent post, and this made for very interesting, sensible and intelligent reading. What is so interesting to me, however, is for a fraction of the price for so much of this gear ( and I owned some of it and heard much of it ), owning Klipsch Heritage for 50 years, nothing, ime, satisfies me the way PWK designs do. Granted, stock Klipsch, even the newest, have a few weaknesses. But, with a few modifications, tweaking, and updating, they are stellar, and do more right, than wrong. Perfect, likely not. My ears, at 65, although still excellent, are not perfect. My room, although excellent, is not perfect. And, the recordings ? Absolutely not. But do they deliver a fine performance, with ALL genres of music ? Absolutely. And, with the benefit of eliminating a gain stage, and another ability to use a smaller, simpler amplifier, which we all know sounds better in terms of detail and clarity than huge behemoth counterparts, for ME, it is a win win. Sorry for my little rant......Enjoy ! everyone. Always, MrD.

I can’t buy more speakers... first, I don’t have the space for those big speakers and secondly I can’t buy another speaker while my Neoliths are here. 

WC, is it money, the wife, or space ? LOL

The wife won’t be a factor in less than 10 days. I’ll be able to blast things anytime I want and never worry again. Right now it is the space. The Neoliths are huge so I can’t just put them off to the side. They don’t like being tucked away unless your room is the size of a Costco. 

@whitecamaross 

I'm supposing you mean your room will be done in 10 days?!

Would be nice to have a room the size of Costco; no more room interations.

mrdecibel,
I laughed because at first I thought you said, "your money or your life."

viber6, I will make you an offer you can't refuse...lol

@ viber7, I enjoyed your post, I totally agree with you about the Luxman L-509X integrated amplifier,  Hi fi sound,  don't waste your money!, I did a comprehensive integrated amplifier shoot out between Rega osiris integrated amplifier,  Luxman L-509X, and the new krell k 300I integrated amplifier,  the Krell by far out performed the Luxman!,  the Rega over all out performed the Luxman,  but did not have the treble detail,  however,  the Krell had better treble detail, clarity,  sound stageing,  debth, bass, mid-range, etc..., everything you can think of the krell did better than the Luxman,  all this was done on multi thousand dollar power cables,  speaker cable's, and interconnect's , all same cable's were used on all equipment mentioned here, whitecamaross once told me that the Luxman L-509X integrated amplifier has the same house sound as the best Luxman gear, based on that, I will always stay away from Luxman!, I  also bought the Luxman L-509X integrated amplifier based on what was said by whitecamaross and others on this thread,  so to all of you here, I enjoy this thread,  however,  do not buy anything mentioned here until you listen to it first on your system or else where first!, valuable lesson learned by me, cheers. 

WCSS..... I understand about no Wilsons. It was just such a great price for the Mother Lode of the Wilson speaker line.

To my ears there is a substantial difference between the 509x and the Luxman m900u and c900u separates. I demoed both with TAD ME1 speakers. An incredible monitor speaker.

I was surprised at how much better everything was on the separates given the sterling reviews of the 509x. The separates are my most desired gear now and I expect to buy them near the end of this year. 

Audiolabyrinth,

i recommended and STILL recommend luxman. That said, this doesn’t mean each and everyone of you  will also like it. 
You seem to prefer Krell over the luxman integrated and that’s cool. That said, there’s nothing “hifi” about the luxman and my recommendation goes based on everything else I’ve owned. It’s awesome gear that gives you a lot for the money but yes it’s not going to be 100% everyone’s cup of tea. There’s no such thing in audio. 

audiolabyrinth said... "I enjoy this thread, however, do not buy anything mentioned here until you listen to it first on your system or elsewhere first!, valuable lesson learned by me, cheers. "

That pretty much sums up the whole enchilada...Great thread WC!!!

WC -

Wow, only 10 more days (9 days now) and your room will be ready?   That's exciting!
Dave

As far as WC, and his new room. This is his 1st foray into having "  his own room ", and even if it is not perfect ( no room is, nor has been, ime ), wc will enjoy whatever he is listening to, to a greater extent than before, because of the freedoms he will now have, without the worries of disturbing others, 24 / 7. I cannot play music at 3 AM, at my desired levels, as my neighbors will likely hear it. I am assuming wc isolated his room in this way. However, ime, the pressurization of the room could be a problem, as I believe, this has been mentioned previously. 

The room will add freedom, space, privacy, and yes i bought the Sheetrock that is used in studios which is double sided and keeps the noise from exiting the room. The entire room including the ceiling will be using this Sheetrock which is more expensive than standard Sheetrock. 
The goal is to get room done first and move the equipment in the room. Eventually I will begin to connect everything thing and take my time decorating it, adding a thing or two etc. The room will go through a transition overtime. 

@Viber6
How do you "take" pot ?

Viber,
Let’s keep things on target please? 

Yes, please.

no pot discussion,  but rambling on about mercury in FOOD is ok? LOL

No more pot, just a brief mention that mercury causes neurological damage which affects hearing, very relevant.  The damage can take many years to occur, similar to loud volumes, obviously relevant here.  

Mrdecibel always has valued input, and most of it relevant.

Why two vibers? Isnt one enough lol

Throwback Thursday:
The Mark Levinson 533h just entered my room and is going through the motions with the Rowland preamp and K1 dac. It has been a very long time since i had heard this amplifier. i think i owned it at the very beginning of my journey and was very impressed by it. Anyhow, here are my thoughts on the unit from a dead cold start:

1. Clear, clean mids. (Mark levinson is AWESOME AT THIS).
2. Good soundstage width
3. Amazing depth and it seems to be almost creating a "surround sound" effect here. Whoa!
4. Bass is not as deep, but the amp has been playing for only 10 minutes
5. A tad "bright", but again this is a cold amp right now.


I will update my thoughts later on once it has been playing for a few hours. i remember that these amps sounded best after a few days of being plugged in. Without a doubt, the preamp/dac i have has great synergy with this amp.