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!
WC, Even though the room is not complete, it would be interesting to hear the Merrill vs Rowland on the floor with a simple input like the Oppo and volume control if you still have it. The more live empty room is not the final acoustic you will have, but the essential difference between the Rowland and Merrill amps should still be apparent. At the very least, you could casually break in the Merrill if it is relatively new.
Can’t do that. I have zero help and don’t have the cabling with the proper lengths either. The earliest I’ll be able to move anything from my living room is next Friday
Ok guys. I managed to pull out the merril 118s and posted a few pics. Gorgeous looking amps. The wife said this is the best looking amplifier she’s ever seen and as you all know she’s seen about 300 of them lol
I just got done listening to the merril Monos and they have awesome bass control. That said, it’s a difficult task for me to really review new gear in a brand new room. I don’t really know my new room at all in terms of sound. I haven’t allowed my ears to listen extensively with different amps, etc so whatever I play right now will sound totally different and unknown to me. I also never played the dynaudios c4 in my living room to compare them in the dedicated room. I guess this is me answering my own question which is “should I bring the Neoliths in the room? Yes! Having them in the new room would allow me to better gauge the sound of the new space.
Acoustic Foam works to a certain extent, for sure. A solid wood door will kill a ton of sound leakage, compared to a regular inside door. I have solid doors in certain areas of my home, and it works quite well with door seals. I’m not sure if your door is solid or not, but they would be a great choice with acoustic foam. I have seen this done at indoor shooting ranges also.
If you want higher quality speakers than the Martin Logan 35XTs, and 50XT centers, there is some great Dynaudio or many others from European designers. Across the pond, the homes can’t support larger speakers, and they have some killer bookshelf choices with centers. The Martin Logans can handle quite a bit of power, and I love the sound of their ribbon tweeters.
WC, Since most of your goodies are still in the other room, you could quickly regain your reference Rowland sound in your mind. Each 118 weighs only 65 lbs so you could briefly move them to the other room and do the A/B there at moderate levels so you don't disturb the family. Besides, for your critical evaluations of nuances, you have usually listened at moderate levels. Viber7 on the Merrill thread had an informative comparison of various top amps with the 118. My only caveat is that the Christine preamp softened the transients of the 118, but his Chord DAVE directly connected to the 118 showed full speed ahead. So you might want to use the Rowland Corus preamp to A/B the 925 with the 118.
Rowland 925s vs Merrill audio element 118s are now in the same room, going through the motions and being fed by the oppo 205. This is only a small review with both amps being dead cold:
- Rowland 925s: more relaxed presentation with good musicality and good bass - Merrill 118s: thunderous bass with good detail. Presentation is more forward than Rowland. Big bold mids
WC, Thanks. As you continue to listen, please comment on the tonality of 925 vs 118 on the spectrum of cold/sterile/analytic/ruthlessly unforgiving at one end, vs warm/sweet/lush/forgiving at the other end. I hope they are still in the living room, where you remember the sound of the Block, perhaps your favorite amp for nearly everything.
Yes I do have one row of 3 recliners for now. I also just ordered eight “244 basstraps” from GIK acoustics. They recommended I start with that based on the pictures I sent them. Little by little I’ll keep adding more. Now I need to decide what to do with the inside of the doors... I’m thinking of buying that acoustic foam they have on amazon to stick on the entire food but I need to entertain other options First. I don’t want to do the room treatment 3 different times. With that said, I’ve just posted a few pics of the element 118s and the Jeff Rowland 925s!
gorgeous pics WC. very inspiring, man.. Congrats to you to have gotten to this point and glad you are breaking in the room and listening again. Have the cables you have in house changed any in the last 3-4 weeks?
WC, With the wall to wall thick carpeting and low ceiling, the room looks like the acoustics will be fairly dead already. After you do more listening to the Merrill and Rowland in the living room, you can put your Neos and other equipment in the new room as is, listen, and then decide what room treatments you want. You can try thinner carpets and less floor covering to liven it up. A little bare floor gives life and beauty to the sound without much uncontrolled reverberation. I liked your living room with the combination of floor tile and rug. All the large theater chairs will further deaden the sound, so don't commit to acoustic panels until you work on the floor first. Just as it has taken years to decide what your favorite electronics and sources are, it will take time to optimize the room.
Sorry viber. I’m not going to change the entire carpet I just got done getting installed. The room is what it is for now and it will get where it needs to get with no less effort than the 300 plus amplifiers i have been through. Just like some used to say my living room was too narrow or too small for the Neoliths, etc and I made it work. I’ll make this dedicated space work. I’ve made a lot of gear work in the most awkward places. You all need to remember that the room is larger and emptier than the living room was. There’s Also special drywall in the entire room that is double layered unlike standard drywall. Im not fully moved into the room either and last but not least, im using a speaker I’ve not heard in ages.
I am working with GIK acoustics throughout the process. They told me they know how to make a room sound larger and more alive. Yes putting cheaper carpet is the easiest but aesthetically speaking, I did not like thin carpet options I was shown because they all looked like sandpaper and you couldn’t sit your ass on the floor for more than 3 minutes before your legs fell asleep. I also just ordered a calibration mic to take room measurements with REW which will help me see the issues and address those.
One advantage of a deader room is that you hear the acoustics of the recording alone, instead of a quirky combination of the acoustics of the room AND the recording. Spatial clarity is improved, although the tonal quality is more delicious in a more live room. Personally, I like the tonal quality in Boston's Symphony Hall better than Carnegie Hall in NY. Carnegie is all carpet with plush seats, but Boston has no carpet and the seats are utilitarian wood seats. When filled with people to absorb sound, this creates overall lively sound. The stage where the musicians perform never has carpet in any hall or studio. Yeah, I know you went through a lot of work with all the installations, but you would enjoy the experiments with more or less floor covering. You could even get some of the same floor tile you have in the living room, cover up the carpet, like the Bath Fitter company which installs the new tub over the old, and see how much life you can get in this manner, putting more tile in various locations. I promise that this will be worth all the effort, but first listen with the present carpet with the complete system to get a baseline reference point.
Today i positioned my c4 dynaudios closer to the wall and with less space in between them and things began to sound MUCH MUCH better. i have been listening to the rowland 925s and the Merrill 118s through the matching Merrill Chirstine preamp. Here are my impressions:
1. Rowland 925s are indeed sweeter with more of a relaxed presentation while still presenting a coherent sound signature. 2. Rowland 925s have less pronounced bass and oomph, but they still carry their own just with less "meat" 3. Merrill 118s have a HUGE soundstage that could potentially sound just as big as the Constellation Centaur 2? 3. Merrill 118s sound EXTREMELY clear sounding as if someone has a window open and you are sticking your head right throw it. 4. Merrill 118s are NOT forgiving. They sounded very bright through my Wireworld Eclipse 7 XLR and some songs did not sound as enjoyable as the rowland 925s. 5. Merrill 118s is a much faster sounding amp than the rowland 925s. The speed is almost as if are playing songs with a slight "fast forward" feel to it.
More impressions to come soon. One thing to keep in mind is that these Merrill 118s are serious and don’t play any games. I am HIGHLY IMPRESSED to say the least. Now if could get the Neoliths in the room so i can really tax the hell out of both amps and see who is victorious...
WC, Thanks, very informative. Since viber7 found the Christine preamp to have softened transients and the 118 by itself to have sharper transients, it would be interesting to see what you find with the Rowland Corus preamp, although Rowland seems to have a little euphonic, sweetened house sound according to your findings.
whitecamaross. I quote you “pass labs (very VERY musical with excellent bass control. “. And again I quote you” pass Labs ...lethargic bass. Please help me understand and tell me whether you prefer Merrill over Pass Labs
Spectral is warm and not really something I’ve got too much experience with. I did have a dag integrated and it was great. Best integrated I’ve ever heard !
@carey1110 - To be fair Spectral really requires a full system approach with their full electronics and impedance optimized cabling for their ultra-wide bandwidth design to perform at its best. Superb instrument grade circuitry is by design demanding of its supporting gear.
Alfa: everything on my thread is about evolution. When I first heard the pass amps, yes those were my impressions but as soon as I keep moving up the ladder, my opinion has changed. They sound slow and lethargic in comparison to the latest offerings I’ve had the pleasure to review. I have owned over 300 amplifiers and I believe that I have a pretty good ear and can pin point WHAT each amp does or doesn’t do. I think the best pass amps are the xs series or the xa200.5 Monos. Do you want to kill the pass 350.8? Get a luxman 900u. That amp makes the pass 350.8 sound broken.
I think WC does a great job of explaining in great detail how a particular component sounds to his ears. We can't take everything he has ever said about a particular component as static recommendations. As he listens to more and more components his opinions will change. It's easy to think component "X" is great, until it's compared to component "XX" that sounds better.
bill_k hit the nail on the head regarding Spectral from my limited experience in the late 90's. At it's best, with other Spectral and the specific MIT/Spectral cabling in terms of musicality, it can be at or near the top of it's price point, class. However... it doesn't play well with others and has had considerable reliability issues.
The Class D vs A / AB argument is becoming less and less than useful.
Today, there are really great amps, and less than great amps alike, in every class of operation. This means that what the consumer should consider is the tonal and performance character of each individual amp, and how it is suited for the type of music and tone concept of the particular audiophile. However, its class of operation is no longer a tterribly useful, and even less so overarching, criterion for selecting an amplifier.
Case in point are WC's top choices, where you can see a mix of classes of operation, out of which two amps (Rowland M925 and Merrill Elenent 118) operate in class D.
Note also how WC's observations on M925 and Element 118 suggest that the two devices are substantially different in tonal quality... Thus showing how there may be today little tonal commonality amongst higher end class D amplifiers.
I am looking forward to reading more observations from WC about these two amps.... I will post my own findings on 118 once I receive a pair to evaluate.
The Class D vs A / AB argument is becoming less and less than useful.
I completely agree. The pro's and cons of specific amps cannot be adequately or usefully described by the class anymore. We must treat each amp individually.
It's rock-paper-scissors for me. I like some Class D amps better than some class A amps, and I like some linear amps more than Class D, and blindfolded most audiophiles could not tell a good Class D amp from linear.
Putting it another way the synergy that we aim for when auditioning/pairing a pre/amp/speaker is more important than the class of amp you are listening to.
The mcintosh c1100 and 601s is a great light show for the 4th of July. Not to mention, there is a 6 month waiting period to get anything fixed at Mcintosh. i remember ordering just the front glass for a preamp and they told me to make a line and wait about 6 months... Yep...
As far as the entire class d vs class a vs class ab: Look, at this price point, it is all about how "ripe" you want your music to be. Some people like their steak to be rare, medium, medium-well, etc and that is essentially what this is about. To say that class d has not closed the gap is just stupid. Class D has made a HUGE improvement that i am actually the owner of Rowland 925s for a reason. That said, the better performing class d amps are NOT cheap because those few manufacturers that know HOW TO BUILD a class d amp are right now making their money for the time invested into building a better design. It is no different than when Viagra first came out: Pfizer made a killing from it because they needed to pay for everything that went into research and development and make money of course, but now you can get generic viagra for less. My point is that eventually more manufacturers will begin to make cheaper class d that will sound outstanding and this will indeed end up making other manufacturers jump into the class d world. The Merrill 118s are AMAZING, but one could argue that maybe the 116s are just as good and cost you 14k less? Granted, i am one of the few people that would need the 118s because of my massive Neoliths. i am telling everyone that i am in deep thinking mode and over the next couple of weeks i could end up with Merrill amp? The one thing i can disclose to ALL OF YOU is that Merrill is obscene bang for the buck and it has made me wonder HOW MUCH are we being ripped by other manufacturers charging far more money for something that does not even outperform it. I had 2 people come over this weekend and i had them listen to the rowland 925s and the Merrill and both said that they cant justify paying 60k for the 925s after hearing the Merrill. I would totally agree. I know Jeff is currently cooking up a new top end up which should be out by the time Axpona 2020 comes around. oops...you did not hear this from me... :) What amps do i miss right now? the block audios and the Constellation Centaur 2s. However, this Merrill actually makes me VERY NERVOUS and do you want to know why? because i am afraid of it beating other amps that i have personally owned and knowing that that is Merrill costs FAR LESS money. Unfortunately, there will always be those critics that do not believe in class d which is totally fine. There is also the potential issue of poor resale value with a class d amp, but i suspect the Merrill Element amps won’t suffer from this simply because it could very well be the very best class d right now. I have also spoken to Merrill and gave him my .02 cts and criticism (which i won’t disclose) and he totally agreed with me. One criticism was that they should have included aftermarket powercords which he said he thought about, but that it could have made the price go up by $10,000 because each power cord retails for $5k. I hope to keep trying these amps while in my possession and use several powercords and xlrs and finally strap them to my Neoliths to see what the outcome is.
WCSS, we are also waiting anxiously for the Neoliths to be paired with the 118s and have the comparison to the JR925s. I know you are trying to get the Neoliths back in your system and new room, take your time and get everything right and let us know what happens. Can you tell us what preamp/s you have been using with the 118s and JR925s?
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