Since my last post here, 8 years ago on 12-16-09, I traded
up from the very good sounding Clayton M200 monos to their big brothers, the
M300s. The list below picks things up from
there.
Clayton M300: 300/600 wpc into 8/4 ohms, fully in Class
A. There are so many things these amplifiers
do well that I really need to cover them in a review. The main thing with Clayton amps is that they
sound outstandingly real so you think less about electronics and more about the
beauty and power of the music. Clayton
amps provide much more power into Class A than the competition, and
particularly at their price points. The
M300s are about $17K.
Acoustic Imagery Atsah: 400 wpc. I replaced the Clayton
M300s with these in a quest to have it all.
The variety of NC1200 amps (i.e., Acoustic Imagery, Merrill, Mola-Mola,
etc.) all offer a quiet, powerful, rich sound in a small, cool-running,
package. They offered everything I
wanted, except ultimately the sound.
IMO, their sonic deficiency has to do with what I perceive as an absence
of ambient information. I do not know how that could actually be, but the
sound reminds me of musicians individually playing in a studio rather than
performers on a stage together. This is
an inadequate explanation so, for those interested in understanding more
completely what I ultimately could not live with, I recommend reading the review of the Mola-Mola Kaluga amps in Mono and
Stereo linked below;
http://www.monoandstereo.com/2015/08/mola-mola-makua-and-kaluga-review.html
McCormack DNA-2 LAE with SMc Audio Platinum Upgrades: Steve did pretty much everything he could to
upgrade this powerful (300/600 wpc into 8/4 ohms) stereo amplifier and it
sounds very good indeed. It is clear,
powerful and quiet, with a very nice tone.
When I decided I couldn’t live with the Ncore sound, I took an
opportunity on the somewhat rare LAE version of this amplifier and did not
regret the result. I have owned several McCormack
amps including a standard DNA-2 and the DNA-500. Of the four amplifiers listed in this update
post, this is one of the two I still own.
Lamm M1.2 Reference: The biggest 110 wpc (into 8 or 4 ohms)
I have ever heard. I previously owned the
M1.1 and except for a somewhat dark sound, I completely enjoyed my time with
them. These 1.2 Reference monos fixed
the dark sound and kept all the other things I liked about the Lamm hybrid
amps. The sound was full and tonally
rich but with my speakers I ultimately found they did not offer quite the “slam”
I was looking for and had a point where 110 wpc into 4 ohms was just not enough.
Clayton M300: 300/600 wpc into 8/4 ohms, fully in Class
A. Hey wait, did I not mention these at the
top of this post? Sure did. After going through the three very good amps
that replaced my previous M300s, I first tried to buy the original pair back and
found that my buyer would not part with them.
We still stay in touch to occasionally discuss things that work well
with our Claytons. I finally purchased
another pair used and sent them to Wilson Shen who fully upgraded them, as he
did with my previous factory-purchased pair, and the result is spectacular. The somewhat large size and hot-running
temperatures are small trade-offs for the outstanding sound I have achieved
using these Class A amplifiers. Wilson
did not hold my temporary absence from Clayton ownership against me and in
addition to being a wonderful manufacturer to work with, he is also a good friend.
