Rogue versus Peachtree

Have you made a purchase yet? Why not try a new or used Esoteric RZ-1.

I like mine.

I am a Maggie and Peachtree Grand owner, so I figured I'd chime in with my setup. I have both Magnepan MMG's and 3.6R's in a HT setup with the Peachtree Grand Pre used 95% of the time for 2-channel listening and used in HT bypass mode for a little bit of BluRay playback or Netflix streaming. You didn't mention anything about HT use, but the Pre offers a few nice features in that regard (bypass and fixed-pre-outs).

I initially listened to Peachtree products by demoing a Nova with some 1.7s, and I was instantly hooked on both the tube-buffered Peachtree and bigger Maggies, leading to my 3.6 acquisition. The Nova was able to handle the 1.7s up to reasonable volumes, but it didn't have nearly the clarity and resolution of a separate high-current power amp feeding my 3.6s (and I don't think this is due solely to the 3.6s)

I just recently opted for the Grand Pre, because I finally realized just how much the Maggie's love tons of clean power, and I didn't want to be tied to a specific amp, especially when the Pre sounds so amazing. I've been through a few amps with the Maggies and finally settled on a Bryston 4BSST2. If you really want your Maggies to sing, I'd recommend a dedicated power amp. I can play so much louder with so much more detail without blowing my Maggie fuses than with any of the lesser amps I tried. I was worried that the integrated might fall into that 'lesser amp' category. Though you aren't playing loud most of the time with a toddler, a big clean powerful amp will be magical with the Maggies. And you can pick up a used Bryston with 15 years of warranty left for not much more than the price difference between Pre and Integrated.

But as for your list of 4 options, the Peachtree Grand will produce amazing results with the Maggies if they're fed enough power.

Also, I am doing something very similar with streaming via Airplay and Optical input on the Grand. I often use my Macbook Pro and iPhones to stream to an AppleTV I purchased solely for music streaming. When connected to the Grand via optical, the CD-ripped digital music played through the Apple TV produced the best digital streamed quality I have yet heard vs. playing the same CDs through my Primare CD31...A testament to both the Grand's DAC and analog implementation around it.

I'd eliminate the Peachtree Inova in that I doubt the amp has enough ooomph to make the Maggies sing at their best.

Those Emotivas and W4Ss are also ones I've considered. I'll have another look. I like Hotmailjbc's suggestion of demoing a powerful power amp to see if the extra juice is really worth the upgrade.

You might want to look at the Wyred 4 Sound integrateds. I am looking at the mINT right now - it has 100 wpc, with built in DAC. It is suppose to be on par with the peachtree gear. They also have a 250 and 500 wpc integrated.

you are definitley looking at some great gear. for your info i have modified mmgs in a similar sized room as yours with a decco as a pre and a emotiva xpa-2 [500 watts per into 4ohms] many magnepan owners will tell you that you will never regret lots of power..i am into budget gear at this time so i have not listened to the gear you mentioned. the inova only has 80 watts into 6ohms so not much difference in the power dept from what you have in the rega. the grand integrated looks great as do the other amps. at that dollar amount you have many options though. IF, you have room for one more component and a small footprint dac like the hrt or music fidelity possibly ask your local dealer if he has a demo amp you could use for a few nights to see how a good quality, high current amp would work with your rega as a preamp? enjoy the shopping process as you have a great set of speakers and will have many hours of enjoyment ahead of you.

Oh, Digitalaudio, one problem with the Medusa is that it is just a power amp, right? For just a tad more than the Medusa, I could get the Peachtree Grand Integrated, which also has a killer DAC AND a pre-amp AND more wattage AND still has the hybrid tube/SS design. For the reasons listed in my original post, I'm probably going to steer away from gobs of seperates.

Hotmailjbc, my listening room is approximately 14' x 22' with 10' ceilings, though I do most of my listening from about 6'-8' away--pretty close to the speakers. I may be moving them to the basement room, though, which is roughly the same size but with 7' ceilings.

I occasionally would like to listen loud, but with a toddler, I rarely get the chance. It'd be nice to have the ability to do so, but sound quality is much more of an issue than volume.

Digitalaudio, I am not married to Class D, but I like their efficiency, and I understand they have become very competitive quality-wise with Class A and A/B amps. I have considered the other Rogues and have peeked at Bel Canto, too. I will take a closer look at both. (Plus, like Magnepan, I like that Bel Canto is a Minnesota company! Born and raised, blah blah blah...insert Vikings joke here.)

If you are thinking about a class D amp like the Peachtree I would think you would also want to consider Rogue's new Class D hybrid Medusa and perhaps the Bel Canto Ref150s or Ref500s and Dac 2.5 combo.

i would first ask how loud do you like your music and how big is the room. as you may know it takes several times the power to drastically increase volume output.