Rowland 201 mono's, has anyone heard them?


I was in a Rowland dealer and they showed me the new Rowland 201 mono blocks for $4700.00 per pair. These were not yet broken in & I did not really listen. 250 watts per channel @ $4,700.00 per pair. At $4,700.00 per pair has anyone listen to these beauties?
bobheinatz
I e-mailed Rowland and they told me that only a handful have been sent out in the field so far. They are supposed to start shipping regularly sometime in Oct.
Any thoughts on how the 201's compare sonically to the Model 10's? I'm curious as the Model 10's are more expensive; nevertheless, the 201's are monoblocks based on new 301/302 technology. Any observations on the bass response? It seems to be an exciting amp at a relatively reasonable price...
My question is this; If the 201 is borrowing technology from the 301/302 amps, then why are the 201's so small (physically) in comparison to the 301? Or, in other words why would the 301 have to be so huge(physically) in comparison to the 201's? Logic would dictate that a pair of 201's rated at 250wpc should be pretty close in size to a single 301 rated at 300wpc, but the pair of 201's seen to take up less than half the real estate as a single 301.
Bass response sounded pretty good, although when I heard them nothing was familiar to me - I hadn't ever heard *any* of the components in question before, nor was the music familiar.

I'll get a chance to hear them this weekend, so I'll provide a report next week.
I got to listen to the Rowland 201's again today, this time in a much more controlled situation. The system I heard used a Classe CDP-10, Rowland Synergy IIi preamp, and new Avalon Ascendant speakers. I A/B'ed the Rowland M201 monoblocks vs the Classe CAM-350 monoblocks.

I chose the Classe pieces because I own Classe amps and a Classe CDP, and I was trying to keep as much controlled as possible. I don't know the make of the power cords, interconnects, or speaker cable, although a good bet is that the interconnects are Cardas Golden Reference and the power cables are probably Shunyatas.

I sampled baroque trumpet by Bach and Haydn, some Puccinni opera, Scottish folk by North Sea Gas, and some Mary Chapin Carpenter.

The general perspective of the two amps is about the same. I wouldn't call either of them forward or laid-back; they're both pretty middle-of-the-road as far as I am concerned.

I found that the M201s were totally grain free, through the entire audio spectrum. At least, I never noticed any. The CAM-350's produced some, in places where Classe amps typically do; the only frequency range it was obvious was in the treble, down from the highest tones.

I found little to choose from in the midrange, where both of them got it pretty much exactly right. (Bear in mind that my reference is a Classe.)

In the bass, the M201s were tight and well controlled, perhaps a little bit tighter than the CAM-350s, but not much. The Classe amps definitely had more reserves, and showed it on orchestral crescendos, although the M201s were not straining. (Given the M201's rating at 250wpc and the CAM350's at 350wpc, this isn't too surprising.)

The main area that I thought that the M201s were clearly beaten by the CAM350s was in image width. The M201s did not, to my ear, produce a particularly wide image, although it wasn't bad. By comparison, the CAM350s produced a very wide soundstage, well beyond the boundaries of the speakers. This was true on all four discs, and it wasn't subtle.

Interestingly, the situation was exactly reversed when it came to depth of the sonic image. The front-to-back layering was considerably deeper and also slightly better defined with the Rowlands. Again, the differences were not at all subtle. The Rowlands were clearly superior in this area. At one spot in the opera, some of the chorus is heard from a truly distant perspective; it was heard from an even
deeper perspective than normal, which I think is as it should be for this particular recording.

In image height, I wasn't sure which I preferred. The Rowlands produced a much taller image, but in some cases the image was so large that it seemed implausible to me. The size of the vertical image varied much more between discs than width or depth, and I know that Avalons are pretty sensitive to these sorts of things. It may well be
that the differences are interactions between the amps and the speakers. To my ears and taste, the CAM-350's produced a more believable vertical image, and also one that is consistent with what I hear from my Martin Logan Odysseys.

Overall I was not quite as impressed as I was when I heard them previously, but that was with Piega C40 LTDs ($35K!) and a Shanling CDP. I am more than a little suspicious that the difference from then to today is the C40s. (I thought they were C10 LTDs, but I looked more carefully today.)

Overall the Rowland 201s are VERY, VERY good amps. Whether or not you prefer them to something else is probably a matter of taste, and interaction with other components (particularly speakers).